I'm thinking of adding a task pane interface to one of my applications and am looking for thoughts on how I might implement this interface. My goal is to implement an interface similar to Office 2003 task panes. My application framework is TopLevel form vs. _SCREEN based. I want to avoid 3rd party ActiveX/COM components.

I plan on reviewing VFP's TaskPane source code (in XSOURCE.ZIP), but I'm also interested in other approaches. (From what I can tell, the VFP task pane is mostly webbrowser based)

Here's my list of possible techniques for implementing a task pane interface:

- docked toolbar with container
- docked MDI window(s)
- seperate form manually docked to edge
- container within current form
- other ?

Interested in your thoughts.

Malcolm