How to set the Flow Direction of FlowLayoutPanel in C#?

Last Updated : 02 Aug, 2019

In Windows Forms, FlowLayoutPanel control is used to arrange its child controls in a horizontal or vertical flow direction. Or in other words, FlowLayoutPanel is a container which is used to organize different or same types of controls in it either horizontally or vertically. In FlowLayoutPanel control, you can set the flow direction of the control in the form using FlowDirection Property. This property has four different values that are defined under FlowDirection enum and the values are:

BottomUp: The flow of the elements is from the bottom of the design surface to the peak.
LeftToRight: The flow of the elements is from the left-side of the design surface to the right-side.
RightToLeft: The flow of the elements is from the right-side of the design surface to the left-side.
TopDown: The flow of the elements is from the top of the design surface to the bottom.

The default value of this property is LeftToRight. You can set this property in two different ways:

1. Design-Time: It is the easiest way to set the flow direction of the FlowLayoutPanel as shown in the following steps:

Step 1: Create a windows form as shown in the below image:
Visual Studio -> File -> New -> Project -> WindowsFormApp
Step 2: Next, drag and drop the FlowLayoutPanel control from the toolbox to the form as shown in the below image:
Step 3: After drag and drop you will go to the properties of the FlowLayoutPanel and set the flow direction of the FlowLayoutPanel as shown in the below image:

Output:

2. Run-Time: It is a little bit trickier than the above method. In this method, you can set the flow direction of the FlowLayoutPanel control programmatically with the help of given syntax:

public System.Windows.Forms.FlowDirection FlowDirection { get; set; }

Here, FlowDirection represents the flow direction of the FlowLayoutPanel control. The following steps show how to set the flow direction of the FlowLayoutPanel dynamically:

Step 1: Create a FlowLayoutPanel using the FlowLayoutPanel() constructor is provided by the FlowLayoutPanel class.
```
// Creating a FlowLayoutPanel
FlowLayoutPanel f = new FlowLayoutPanel();
```
Step 2: After creating FlowLayoutPanel, set the FlowDirection property of the FlowLayoutPanel provided by the FlowLayoutPanel class.
```
// Setting the flow direction 
f.FlowDirection = FlowDirection.RightToLeft;
```

Step 3: And last add this FlowLayoutPanel control to the form and also adding child controls in the FlowLayoutPanel using the following statements:

// Adding a FlowLayoutPanel
// control to the form
this.Controls.Add(f);
and 

// Adding child controls 
// to the FlowLayoutPanel
f.Controls.Add(r1);

Example:

using System; 
using System.Collections.Generic; 
using System.ComponentModel; 
using System.Data; 
using System.Drawing; 
using System.Linq; 
using System.Text; 
using System.Threading.Tasks; 
using System.Windows.Forms; 
  
namespace WindowsFormsApp50 { 
  
public partial class Form1 : Form { 
  
    public Form1() 
    { 
        InitializeComponent(); 
    } 
  
    private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) 
    { 
        // Creating and setting the  
        // properties of FlowLayoutPanel 
        FlowLayoutPanel f = new FlowLayoutPanel(); 
        f.Location = new Point(380, 124); 
        f.Size = new Size(216, 57); 
        f.Name = "Mycontainer"; 
        f.Font = new Font("Calibri", 12); 
        f.FlowDirection = FlowDirection.RightToLeft; 
        f.BorderStyle = BorderStyle.Fixed3D; 
        f.ForeColor = Color.BlueViolet; 
        f.Visible = true; 
  
        // Adding this control to the form 
        this.Controls.Add(f); 
  
        // Creating and setting the  
        // properties of radio buttons 
        RadioButton r1 = new RadioButton(); 
        r1.Location = new Point(3, 3); 
        r1.Size = new Size(95, 20); 
        r1.Text = "R1"; 
  
        // Adding this control  
        // to the FlowLayoutPanel 
        f.Controls.Add(r1); 
  
        RadioButton r2 = new RadioButton(); 
        r2.Location = new Point(94, 3); 
        r2.Size = new Size(95, 20); 
        r2.Text = "R2"; 
  
        // Adding this control  
        // to the FlowLayoutPanel 
        f.Controls.Add(r2); 
  
        RadioButton r3 = new RadioButton(); 
        r3.Location = new Point(3, 26); 
        r3.Size = new Size(95, 20); 
        r3.Text = "R3"; 
  
        // Adding this control 
        // to the FlowLayoutPanel 
        f.Controls.Add(r3); 
    } 
} 
} 