ToolStrip container is a composite control very similar in overall design to the SplitContainer. It takes four ToolStripPanels docked to the sides and one ContentPanel dock filled in the middle to make up the typical four sided arrangment commonly used today. Below are some quick notes on ToolStripContainer parts.

The ToolStripPanels on the sides are not removable from the the container, but can be hidden via their respective visible property(Top -> TopToolStripPanelVisble, etc). Visible false means they would not participate in the drag to dock scnearions.

// to hide left and right panels
toolStripContainer1.LeftToolStripPanelVisible = false;
toolStripContainer1.RightToolStripPanelVisible = false;

The Content panel provides a way to get Renderer support into the body of your form to create a consistent look. It cannot be hidden. It does supports transparency and backcolor, but it may be prudent in many scenarios that require this to dock ToolStripPanels to the side instead.

ToolStripContainer offers several design time features not found on other controls. Below is a description of a few of these.

On each ToolStripPanel we offer a handle to temporarily expand the ToolStripPanel to ease rearrangement of ToolStrips and enlarge the drop area. These are not rendered at runtime.

A designer verb, also shown on the Designer Action panel, is Reparent controls. This takes all controls on the form and reparents them to the ToolStripContainer. All ToolStrips are mapped into the ToolStripPanels and all other controls parented to the form are reparented to the ContentPanel.