Dock Painters (22 Styles)

Overview

The BeepDock control supports 22 distinct visual painter styles, each implementing the IDockPainter interface. Painters control every aspect of dock rendering: background glass/shelf effects, item icons and labels, magnification animation, hover indicators, drag indicators, separators, badges, and hit testing.

Painters are resolved at runtime via DockPainterFactory.GetPainter(dockStyle). The factory returns a singleton instance per style. Key supporting types include DockConfig (layout/behavior properties), DockItemState (per-item visual state), and DockPainterMetrics (computed sizes and bounds).

IDockPainter Contract

Every dock painter implements these 7 core methods:

public interface IDockPainter
{
    void PaintDockBackground(Graphics g, Rectangle bounds, DockConfig config);
    void PaintDockItem(Graphics g, DockItemState state, DockConfig config);
    void PaintIndicator(Graphics g, Rectangle bounds, DockConfig config);
    void PaintSeparator(Graphics g, Rectangle bounds, DockConfig config);
    Rectangle CalculateItemBounds(int index, DockItemState state, DockConfig config);
    Rectangle CalculateDockBounds(Control host, DockConfig config, int itemCount);
    int HitTest(Point point, List<Rectangle> itemBounds);
}

DockPainterFactory

DockPainterFactory maintains a static Dictionary<DockStyle, IDockPainter> mapping each style enum to its painter instance. The factory is initialized with all 22 painters at startup.

The DockStyle enum includes all 22 values: Apple, Windows11, iOS, Material3, GNOME, Plank, PlasmaPanel, Neumorphic, Glassmorphism, Cyberpunk, Dracula, Nord, Neon, Minimal, Floating, Bubble, Arc, Terminal, ClassicTaskbar, Pill, Custom, and Default.

DockConfig & DockItemState

DockConfig

DockConfig holds layout and behavior properties that affect all items. It is passed to every painter method.

DockItemState

DockItemState captures the per-item visual state for a single rendering frame.

Painter Catalog (22 Total)

Two additional slots exist for Custom (user-provided) and Default (resolves to AppleDockPainter).

Rendering Pipeline

The dock rendering pipeline follows this order each frame:

1. ConfigureAsStyleDock(dockStyle) → sets DockConfig.DockStyle
2. painter = DockPainterFactory.GetPainter(config.DockStyle)
3. painter.CalculateDockBounds(host, config, items.Count)
4. For each item: painter.CalculateItemBounds(i, state, config)
5. painter.PaintDockBackground(g, dockBounds, config)
6. For each item: painter.PaintSeparator(g, sepBounds, config) [if between groups]
7. For each item: painter.PaintDockItem(g, state, config)
8. For each active item: painter.PaintIndicator(g, indicatorBounds, config)

The DockPainterMetrics helper computes derived values: total dock width, item spacing, separator positions, magnification zones, and padding. These metrics are cached per-frame and consumed by painters.

Examples

var dock = new BeepDock();

dock.DockStyle = DockStyle.Windows11;

dock.DockStyle = DockStyle.Material3;
dock.Config.AnimationStyle = AnimationStyle.Magnification;
dock.Config.MaxScale = 1.8f;
dock.Config.IconMode = IconMode.IconWithLabel;

dock.DockStyle = DockStyle.Cyberpunk;
dock.Config.ItemSize = 56;
dock.Config.ItemSpacing = 8;

dock.DockStyle = DockStyle.Floating;
dock.Config.DockHeight = 64;
dock.Config.Alignment = DockAlignment.Center;

var item1 = dock.AddItem("browser", "Browser", Color.Cyan);
var item2 = dock.AddItem("terminal", "Terminal", Color.Magenta);
item2.BadgeCount = 3;

dock.DockStyle = DockStyle.Dracula;