The following is the code snippit that I got working when trying to prove the case. I'm not sure if the show() is entirely necessary, but i did find I had to take care of resizing issues as the panel didn't necessarily manage that itself with regard to its child controls - though I admit I stopped researching at that point as I had functioning code...

private void frmIdeasByProcess_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

// I'm trying to host a plain form wthin a docking area - this means I can create a singe idea edit/browse form and

// just re-use it everywhere...

frmIdeaEdit frm = new frmIdeaEdit();

frm.TopLevel = false;

pnlIdeas.Controls.Add(frm);

frm.Parent = pnlIdeas;

frm.Show();

}

private void pnlIdeas_Resize(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

// resize the form contained with in it...

pnlIdeas.Controls[0].Height = pnlIdeas.Height;

pnlIdeas.Controls[0].Width = pnlIdeas.Width;

}

Set formChild.TopLevel to False before adding it to the controls collection.

pfalcon,

Thanks for updating this thread with your findings. I have the same need to dock a form within another form.  Can you provide a  little more detail of the code that you used to accomplish the steps you mentioned.  In particular, I'm  having trouble figuring out how to add a form as a child of a panel.  Assuming I have a main form "Main_Form" within which I want to dock an instance of a child form "Child_Form" and that I have a panel "panelLeft" that is docking fine on the main form, I attempt the following:

Form formChild = new Child_Form();

this.panelLeft.Controls.Add(formChild);

I get an error that a top level control can not be added to a panel.

 Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 Steve