Creating a custom panel for the APT Invoice sample

With the custom panel for the APT application, you can run task profiles, perform database lookups at runtime, and implement a line item grid to display invoice items.

1. In Microsoft Visual Studio, open the DotEditPanels project. (See Setting up the DotEdit development environment.)
2. Check the Solution Explorer window to see if there is an existing custom panel called Main_Page.cs. If there is, right-click the file and choose Exclude From Project.
   Important: If you do not exclude the existing panel from the project, this build error is generated: The file xxx could not be added to the project. A file with the same path already exists in the project. If you encounter any problems, try closing and re-opening the project.
3. Press Ctrl+F5 (Start Without Debugging).
4. Click the Browse […] button next to the DCO Setup field and then select the file C:\Datacap\APT\dco_APT\APT.xml.
5. Leave the Layout XML field empty because there is no XML layout file for this tutorial.
   Tip: The Layout XML field allows you to specify a panel layout XML file for a previously existing panel. If you have an XML layout file, you can select it and DotEdit attempts to create the new panel with the controls positioned as they were in the previously existing panel. For information about the Layout XML field, see Creating the default custom panel
6. The Page Type field lets you select the page for which to create the custom panel. The APT application has only one page type (Main_Page).
7. In the New name field, enter the name for the new C# class. If this is your first custom APT panel, you can leave the default name. To create a new version, enter a new name.
8. Click Create. Visual Studio displays a message indicating that you need to reload the project.
9. Click OK to close the message window and then close the dotmaster UserControl TestContainer window.
10. Click Reload.