For the WPF XamDockManager, I would like to be able to drag any object onto the dock manager and see the visual placement cues to know where I’m going to dock it, however, I do not want to create a ContentPane for it or add it to the dock manager until I’ve chosen where to dock it (I may want to choose between multiple dock managers). Once I’ve chosen where to drop it and released the mouse button, I would then like to create the pane with the object in it as its content, and then add that newly created pane to the dock manager in the spot where I chose to dock it. Is this sort of functionality at all possible?
There is currently no such functionality in the control. The drag operation is an operation that is initiated internally as a result of dragging a pane related element (e.g. PaneTabItem, PaneHeaderPresenter) that is associated with a ContentPane in the xamDockManager. If you would like to see some additional functionality like this you may want to submit a feature request.