Panels and Transparency - Resizing

Product Version	Product	Author	Last modified
Q2 2008	RadControls for WinForms	Nikolay Diyanov	Dec 4, 2008

PROBLEM

When you have Panel, TableLayoutPanel or FlowLayoutPanel with transparent BackColor and gradient background, your scenario might include resizing these panels. However, you will notice undesired flickering while resizing.

HOW-TO
Overcome the issue with the flickering panels on resize.

SOLUTION

In order to reduce the flickering, you should make your own panels' descendant classes. Then, in the constructor of the inherited class, you should set the DoubleBuffer to true:

public class CustomTableLayoutPanel : TableLayoutPanel  
{  
    public CustomTableLayoutPanel()  
    {  
        this.DoubleBuffered = true;  
    }  
} 

This is also useful when your scenario regards scrolling. A sample project is available at the following link to demonstrate how panels are behaving with and without DoubleBuffer.