Yes that's pretty much what I am trying to do. I got about 20 of these palette strips and they contain textboxes, cmdButtons, cboBoxes, etc
There should never have to be more than 3 or 4 displayed at any given time. I am trying to make them intuitive and autoswitch on and go away when not needed.
I got it working now and can autoload the main "Command" palette and have it dock to the top.
It remembers the palette location for next time wherever you set it as well. But only if I use a Guid and the addHandlers
I found an example over in acad.net from Mike Tuersley I distilled down and mixed with your sample to get this:
Public paletteCommands As Autodesk.AutoCAD.Windows.PaletteSet
Public paletteCommand As commands
Public Class Class1
Implements IExtensionApplication
Public Sub Initialize() Implements IExtensionApplication.Initialize
Autodesk.AutoCAD.ApplicationServices.Application.StatusBar.RemoveDefaultPane(DefaultPane.All)
StartInterface()
End Sub
Public Sub Terminate() Implements IExtensionApplication.Terminate
End Sub
End Class
Public Sub StartInterface()
If paletteCommands Is Nothing Then
paletteCommands = New Autodesk.AutoCAD.Windows.PaletteSet("acadToolPalette", New Guid("63B8DB5B-10E4-4924-B8A2-A9CF9158E4F6"))
AddHandler paletteCommands.Load, AddressOf ps_Load 'add the events
AddHandler paletteCommands.Save, AddressOf ps_Save
paletteCommands.Style = PaletteSetStyles.ShowPropertiesMenu Or PaletteSetStyles.ShowAutoHideButton Or PaletteSetStyles.ShowCloseButton
paletteCommands.MinimumSize = New System.Drawing.Size(1240, 36)
paletteCommands.Dock = Autodesk.AutoCAD.Windows.DockSides.Top
paletteCommand = New commands
paletteCommands.Add("Commands", paletteCommand)
End If
paletteCommands.Visible = True
End Sub
'skeleton construct to configuration settings
'refer to acadDefaults example project
Private Sub ps_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Autodesk.AutoCAD.Windows.PalettePersistEventArgs)
'
Dim a As Double = CType(e.ConfigurationSection.ReadProperty("whatever", 22.3), Double)
End Sub
Private Sub ps_Save(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Autodesk.AutoCAD.Windows.PalettePersistEventArgs)
'
e.ConfigurationSection.WriteProperty("whatever", 32.3)
End Sub
Next I will see if I can get all the palettes to work together