Once users have customized your application's user interface to their liking, you need an easy way to load and save their arrangement of content panes, sizes, states and positions. xamDockManager provides load and save methods to XML that you can use to store a user's preferred layout before closing the application, and reload that user's preferred layout when your application starts up.

The WPF docking control comes with a special object, the DocumentContentHost, that can be used as a specialized container for content panes to be hosted within the client area of xamDockManager. This gives you the ability to display content panes within tabs, and have multiple tabs that users can drag around from the client area of the xamDockManager like they would in a multi-tabbed, MDI application.

Similar to the IDE Navigator found in Visual Studio® 2008, the pane navigator allows end users to easily switch between content panes from a list that they can display by pressing the keyboard CTRL + TAB or ALT + F7, clicking the pane navigator button, or which the application can display programmatically. The pane navigator shows users a preview of the new content pane they would switch to, so your users always go to their desired content pane.