>>>What's the easiest way to have a form with different sections on it to have differnet colored backgrounds where you can place controls on those sections. I tried a container, a shape but dragging a control to it puts it "below the surface" and not visible.
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>>Did you try transparent shapes? Or playing with ZOrder send controls to back/front?
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>zorder was what I remember seeing in the past, but it's not under "layout" in the properties of the designer so that didn't help me to remember. It looks like I can't work with it during design time but have to actually execute the form to see the results.

You can. Go to Format menu and send to back /to front.