How To Organize ItemsPanel Layout? - wpf

Question

I have the code below which I want to display a series of buttons horizontally with an image and text label, and below that row of buttons one label for the entire button group. What I currently have displays the buttons in a row, but the group label displays in the same row to the left of the buttons. I'm probably doing this wrong, but I'm impressed that I got this far. I've tried putting the Child ItemsPanel in a StackPanel, but then it shows no buttons - it seems to loose contact with the collection from the parent window. Is there an easy way to connect this collection and organize the label below the buttons? I'm thinking my next try is to collect the data from the parent in the child's code-behind and build an ItemsSource which I will then connect to the ItemTemplate, but I don't really know how to do that either.
Parent window snippet:
<User_Controls:ToolbarGroup GroupLabel="Group 1">
<User_Controls:ImageButton ButtonText="Test 1"/>
<User_Controls:ImageButton ButtonText="Test 2"/>
<User_Controls:ImageButton ButtonText="Test 3"/>
</User_Controls:ToolbarGroup>
Child window code:
<ItemsControl x:Class="Fiducia_WPF.User_Controls.ToolbarGroup"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
xmlns:User_Controls="clr-namespace:Fiducia_WPF.User_Controls"
mc:Ignorable="d"
Loaded="ItemsControl_Loaded"
d:DesignHeight="170" d:DesignWidth="320">
<ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
<ItemsPanelTemplate>
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Height="170" />
</ItemsPanelTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<User_Controls:ImageButton ButtonText="Temp"/>
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<Label Name="lblGroupTitle" Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0" Content="Group X" FontSize="16" FontWeight="Bold" Margin="0,0,0,0" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center" Visibility="Visible" />
</ItemsControl>

Answer 1

You should create a ControlTemplate for your ItemsControl:
<ItemsControl x:Class="Fiducia_WPF.User_Controls.ToolbarGroup" ...>
<ItemsControl.Template>
<ControlTemplate TargetType="ItemsControl">
<StackPanel>
<ItemsPresenter/>
<Label x:Name="lblGroupTitle" Content="Group X" ... />
</StackPanel>
</ControlTemplate>
</ItemsControl.Template>
<ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
<ItemsPanelTemplate>
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Height="170" />
</ItemsPanelTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<User_Controls:ImageButton ButtonText="Temp"/>
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>
Setting the Content of the lblGroupTitle Label may probably better be done by binding it to a property of the ToolbarGroup control:
<Label Content="{Binding GroupTitle,
RelativeSource={RelativeSource AncestorType=User_Controls:ToolbarGroup}}" ... />

Answer 2

I'd just use a straight up Grid:
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="*"/>
<RowDefinition Height="*"/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Button Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" ... />
<Button Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="1" ... />
<Button Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="2" ... />
<Label Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0" Grid.ColumnSpan="3" />
</Grid>