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How to design a TabPage without TabControl?

I am trying to design some "standalone" tab-pages and later on, I want to add them dynamically to a tab-control in my main form. Visual Studio won't let me open the class extended with TabPage in the designer. Some idea?
using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
namespace Test.View.Panels {
public class MainStatusTabPage : TabPage {
public MainStatusTabPage() {
}
}
}
When I right-click the class in the Solution Explorer and selecting "View Designer", I get the following message (the Designer doesn't show up):
To add components to your class, drag them from the Toolbox and use
the Properties window to set their properties. To create methods and
events for your class, switch to code view.

When I right-click the class in the Solution Explorer and selecting "View Designer", I get the following message (the Designer doesn't show up):
To add components to your class, drag them from the Toolbox and use the Properties window to set their properties. To create methods and events for your class, switch to code view.
This is normal behavior as a TabPage is just a container that holds other controls, nothing more. As #PanagiotisKanavos mentioned above:
A Tab Page is a container, not the actual content of the tab. In all examples that use complex content you'll see that the content is a custom component, eg a User control, that's added into the tab
With this in mind, you can just create a UserControl with all the other controls you would need and then add this new instance (UserControl) to the TabPage itself.

Context-sensitive help for menu items in Windows Forms

I am implementing context-sensitive help for an existing WinForms app built in Visual Studio .NET. I have added a HelpProvider to the form and set the HelpNamespace property to a wonderful .chm that covers every control and menu item on the form. I have set the necessary HelpKeyword on all the controls that derive from Control and so far all is great: F1 works perfectly.
My problem is that I can't work out how to do it for menu items. These use the ToolStripMenuItem class, which does not derive from Control and so has no HelpKeyword property. How should I provide context-sensitive help for individual menu items? Mr. Google has not been very forthcoming.

Using F1 is not a common way of providing help for menu items. Menu items usually use ToolTip, or show some help text in StatusBar or usually their comprehensive helps comes with Help content of main page.
I prefer to use one of above mentioned solutions, but here for learning purpose, I'll show what you can do using HelpRequested event of the form.
To handle help for form and controls, you can rely on the HelpRequested event of the form and controls.
Here you can rely on Form event to solve the problem. Since you have a HelpProvider on form, you should know HelpProvider handles HelpRequested event of all controls internally and, for controls having ShowHelp set to true, it sets Handled to true and prevents bubbling the event up so you can not have your custom code for handling help event if ShowHelp is true. So you should set ShowHelp for controls to false and just use HelpProvider as a help key holder.
To solve the problem using the HelpRequested event of the form, you should follow these steps:
For ToolStripMenuItems, use the Tag property as the help key holder.
For other controls, if you use HelpProvider to assign HelpKey, don't forget to set ShowHelp to false.
Handle the HelpRequested event of the form.
In the body of event handler, check if there is an active menu item on your form, then use the Tag property of the active item to show help. If there is not any active menu, use the ActiveControl property of the form to show the help.
Example
Here is a step by step example of how you can show help for menu items using F1 key. To do so, follow these steps:
Create Form, Menu and Controls - Create a Form and put some controls and a MenuStrip having some menu and sub menus on the form.
Configuring HelpProvider - Put a HelpProvider control on form and for each control assign suitable key to HelpKeyword property of control. Also set ShowHelp for each control to false. We will handle help in code.
Configuring Help for Menu - For a ToolStripMenuItem use its Tag property to store the help keyword.
Creating a helper method to find descendants of the Menu - Add a class to your application having the following code. In the following code, I've introduced an extension method to get all sub ToolStripMenuItem of a MenuStrip:
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Windows.Forms;
public static class ToolStripMenuItemExtensions
{
public static List<ToolStripMenuItem> Descendants(this MenuStrip menu)
{
var items = menu.Items.OfType<ToolStripMenuItem>().ToList();
return items.SelectMany(x => Descendants(x)).Concat(items).ToList();
}
public static List<ToolStripMenuItem> Descendants(this ToolStripMenuItem item)
{
var items = item.DropDownItems.OfType<ToolStripMenuItem>().ToList();
return items.SelectMany(x => Descendants(x)).Concat(items).ToList();
}
}
Handling the Helprequested event to show help - Handle the HelpRequested event of the form and implement the algorithm which I described above using the following code:
private void Form1_HelpRequested(object sender, HelpEventArgs hlpevent)
{
string keyword = "";
var selectedMenuItem = this.menuStrip1.Descendants()
.Where(x => x.Selected).FirstOrDefault();
if (selectedMenuItem != null)
keyword = selectedMenuItem.Tag?.ToString();
else if (ActiveControl != null)
keyword = helpProvider1.GetHelpKeyword(ActiveControl);
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(keyword))
Help.ShowHelp(this, "Help.chm", HelpNavigator.Index, keyword);
}
Note
For testing the solution you don't need a chm file having index and so on. You can simply show the helpkeyword in Text property of form. It means the solution is working and after that you can create suitable chm file.
You can use one of the other overloads of ShowHelp method of Help class based on your requirement.
There are HelpKeyword and HelpString extended properties for controls, pay attention which one you are using and get the same one in the HelpRequested event.
Don't forget to set ShowHelp to false. If you forget this step, the event will be handled internally in Helpprovider.
Don't forget to assign a help keyword to Tag property of menu items. To make it more friendly for future, you can simply create an extender provider that adds a help keyword property to menu items.

c# toolstrip doesn't dock under menustrip

I have a menustrip that I create using the forms designer. I then want to programmatically add a toolstrip toolbar UNDER the menustrip. The reason is that this toolbar is a set of tools that I add as a plugin to the main application. As such, when the plugin is loaded, I create the toolbar.
When I manually add the toolstrip to the form using the forms designer, the toolstrip is correctly positioned under the menustrip. However when I add it programmatically, it snaps to the topmost part of the form, above the menustrip. Here's the code I use to programmatically add the toolstrip:
stereoBar = new ToolStrip();
stereoBar.Anchor = (AnchorStyles)(AnchorStyles.Top | AnchorStyles.Left);
//y location is set to 22, the width of the menustrip
stereoBar.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, 22);
stereoBar.Dock = DockStyle.Top;
stereoBar.Name = "StereoToolbar";
stereoBar.Text = "Stereo Plugin Toolbar";
stereoBar.ShowItemToolTips = true;
stereoBar.GripMargin = new Padding(2);
Controls.Add(stereoBar);
Is there anything simple I am missing here?
Thanks in advance!

As described also in this answer, when docking controls in a form the order in which you add them to the form matters; i.e. when adding multiple controls that all dock to the top, the last control that gets added will be the topmost.
So, because you add your toolstrip programmatically and your menu strip via designer, the designer code gets executed first thus having the menu strip always at the bottom.
I think there are three ways out of the dilemma:
First approach
As Hans Passant pointed out, the easiest way to get things into the right order would be to simply call
stereoBar.BringToFront();
right after you added it to the forms' controls.
Second approach
To circumvent this you could also also add the menu strip programmatically and do this after you added the tool strip.
Third approach
Another way out may be to add another container to the form (Panel or groupbox for example) via designer that also docks to the top that simply just functions as a placeholder where you add your tool strip to (so you do not add to the form directly anymore)

How to add ToolStripSplitButton to Visual Studio Toolbox?

I am using Visual Studio 2010, and I have come across a need to use the ToolStripSplitButton button. I figured out from the reference material that ToolStripSplitButton is a form found under the System.Windows.Forms.
When I attempt to add this to my toolbox to try to use, I am unable to find ToolStripSplitButton, does anybody know how I can add this to my Visual Studio 2010 so I can use it? I don't care if it's not in the toolbox, I just want to make sure the assembly reference is present so I can actually use it.

ToolStripSplitButton can be used only as ToolStripItem of a ToolStrip (contained in ToolStrip.Items). It's designed so that you can't use it as a normal control. It doesn't have a Parent property, and I guess it also doesn't have a Handle property. The inheritance tree is:
ToolStripSplitButton
-> ToolStripDropDownItem
-> ToolStripItem
-> Component
-> ...
Normally, you have to add some ToolStrip to host ToolStripSplitButton.
If you want to use code, here is a simple example:
ToolStrip toolStrip1 = new ToolStrip();
ToolStripSplitButton splitButton1 = new ToolStripSplitButton("Hi there"){Owner = toolStrip1};
//you can add items to ToolStripSplitButton via ToolStripSplitButton.DropDownItems
More info ToolStripSplitButton

It's inherited from and dependent on ToolStripDropDown so you can't use it as a stand-alone control.
You can use it as a child control for ToolStripDropDown.

What is the standard way to add controls to a TabPage at Design Time?

I am creating my first Windows Forms application, to be deployed on Windows Mobile and I am having some trouble designing a Tabbed Interface.
I had assumed that I could Create a TabControl, then Add some TabPages and then drag Controls on to each Tab Page in turn. This does not appear to be possible and most of the information I see on the web seems to suggest that the controls should be added dynamically at run-time.
Am I missing something obvious here or is this indeed correct?
If you do have to add the controls at runtime then how do people generally manage the design process. Do they create a Custom UserControl for each tab and then add that at runtime?
Design environment (C# Visual Studio 2005, .net 2.0)
Runtime environment (Windows Mobile 6.1)
Update 1
The actual steps taken within visual studio were as follows :-
Select New Project -> SmartDevice -> Windows Mobile 6 Professional -> Device Application
Added a TabControl to Form1. This automatically adds tabPage1 and tabPage2
Update 2
The solution to this is embarrassingly noobish. The TabControl puts the tabs at the bottom of the page, the first thing I was doing was resizing the tab control to a single line which was then hiding the TabPage control.

Currently i don't use Windows Mobile, but i think it works quite the same.
After adding a TabControl to your form you should take a look into the properties and search for TabPages. Here you can add and delete new TabPages to your Control and design it as you like in the designer.
To your question about using UserControls on each TabPage i would definitely say Yes. It makes easier to separate between each page and what will happen on each one.
Also at a last step i am going to move the needed code out of the Designer.cs into my own function (e.g. var tabControl = CreateTabControl() where all of my properties are set. Then i put all my UserControls into an
private IEnumerable<Type> GetAllTypes()
{
yield return typeof(MyFirstControl);
yield return typeof(MySecondControl);
}
and make an
private void CreateTabPages(TabControl tabControl, IEnumerable<Type> types)
{
foreach(var type in types)
{
var control = Activator.CreateInstance(type);
var tabPage = new TabPage();
tabPage.Controls.Add(control);
tabControl.TabPages.Add(tabPage);
}
}
this will then be called by
CreateTabPages(tabControl, GetAllTypes());
With this approach i can easily add another Tab Page with a single line of code and design it in its own scope.

I just opened vs2008 and created a tabcontrol, then I added controls inside using drag and drop in the designer and I didn't found any problem.
The way I use to do it is to create a usercontrol for each tab, But I add the usercontrol to the tab in the designer. (note that the usercontrol will not appear in the toolbox until you generate your solution).
I didn't know why your method are not working. Did you stop your application before try to add the controls?
Good Luck.