I have a Windows form control that was built using Telerik RadTools for Windows Forms. The form is styled nicely using the "Office 2010 Silver" theme. However, at runtime, the theme seems to throw-off the alignment of some of my labels.
I have several rows of labels and textboxes on my form. I want the labels' right sides to all line up. This is easily done in the Visual Studio designer. However, I believe my Telerik theme is throwing things off because it slightly changes the font, which alters the labels' sizes as well. Since the designer only stores the x,y coordinates of my controls, the labels' right edges no longer line-up.
Is there a way to code around this?
I fixed this by doing the following on all labels:
Set AutoSize to false.
Set x-location to that of the widest label.
Set size equal to that of the widest label.
Set TextAlignment to right.
Since all labels will have the same width and the same starting (left) location, their positions will now be fixed. Setting the alignment to the right takes care of the problem.
Related
In this WinForms-App (not my choice, they made me use WinForms) there is a FlowLayoutPanel filled with a NumericTextBox, a Label and a CheckBox.
Each control has a text which is displayed. The text of the Label is about 3 pt lower than the other texts (image).
Changing the margin of the Label is not an option, because the outcome after changing the font could be unwanted.
Has anyone an idea of how to fix this without changing the margin?
I tried to change the anchoring and docking for the controls in the FlowLayoutPanel, and the outcome that came closest to my expectations was the one in the image.
How can i scale a Form with font in WPF?
i.e. What is the WPF equivalent of
this.Font = SystemFonts.IconTitleFont;
In WinForms, if you're a good developer, you honor the user's font preferences. A WinForm that starts out as:
You then apply the user's font preferences:
this.Font = new Font("Segoe Print", 11, GraphicsUnit.Point);
and elements on the form scale to accommodate the new size:
Notice:
the form is wider and taller
the label is positioned further down, and to the right
the label is wider and taller
the text of the label is not cut off on the right or on the bottom edge
the button is wider and taller
but button is positioned further down, and to the right
Note: In WinForms you can also use the line:
this.Font = SystemFonts.IconTitleFont;
WPF doesn't support Font, which is why i provided the clearer alternative. For the example below.
A similar WPF form starts out as:
You then apply the user's font preferences with:
this.FontFamily = new FontFamily("Segoe Print");
this.FontSize = 14.666; //11pt = 14.66
and elements on the form don't scale to accommodate the new size:
Notice:
the label's position has not changed
the button's position has not changed
the form is not wider or taller (text is cut off)
the label is not any wider (text is cut off on the right)
the label is not any taller (cutting off text along the bottom edge)
the button is not any wider (text is cut off)
Here is another example of two buttons that are the same size:
WinForms:
Windows Presentation Foundation:
Bonus Reading
WPF: How to specify units in Dialog Units?
How to prevent WPF from scaling with the Windows font size options?
WPF version of .ScaleControl?
WPF doesn't do primitive font-based scaling because it's... well, primitive. You can see it in your own screenshots.
Here's your "WinForms, before changing font" screenshot. Take a look at how much space there is between "sat on a log." and the right edge of the form.
And here's your "WinForms, after changing font" screenshot. Notice how much less margin you have after "scaling".
If you hadn't left all that extra space, then your label would be cut off with the new font. And with some fonts, it would be cut off even though you did leave all that extra space. That's what I mean when I say WinForms' scaling is "primitive". WinForms picks a single scale to apply to everything, and that scale is not chosen with any awareness of your content; it's based on average statistics for the font, which can and will fall apart once you start talking about specifics.
WPF doesn't hobble you with something that primitive. It gives you an amazingly powerful layout system, where it would be trivial to make a window that scales beautifully. But instead, you're choosing to cripple that layout system by using hard-coded sizes. Stop it.
Hard-coded sizes have two huge problems:
They don't adapt to different fonts. You've noticed this already.
They don't adapt to different content. (What happens when you want to make a German version of your app, and the German text doesn't fit into your hard-coded button size?)
Hard-coded sizes just don't adapt. To anything. You had to use them in WinForms because that's all WinForms supported. But WPF gives you a proper layout system, so you don't have to (and shouldn't) use anything that crude.
All you need is this:
A Window with SizeToContent="WidthAndHeight". That way, the window will be exactly the right size to accommodate the text and button, no matter what font or language you use.
Since you only have two UI elements, and one is above the other, you would put a StackPanel inside your Window.
Inside the StackPanel, you need:
A Label or TextBlock to show your text, with the text in Content (Label) or Text (TextBlock); and
A Button with HorizontalAlignment="Right", and the text in Content.
Set some Margins on the StackPanel, TextBlock, and Button to space things out to your liking.
That's it. Don't set any other properties on anything -- especially not Width or Height.
Now, if you change your font, the window and the button will still be exactly the right size, and won't cut off your text. If you localize your app into a different language, the window and the button will be exactly the right size, and won't cut off your text. Stop fighting WPF, and it will give you great results.
If you later want to make your layout more advanced, you could consider things like:
If you want the button to be a little wider (to have more breathing room before and after the text), try playing with the Padding, or set a MinWidth and MinHeight. (Don't use Width or Height if your button contains text. You might consider using them if your button only contains an image, but maybe not even then.)
If you're worried that the font might make the window so large that it no longer fits on the user's screen, and want to enable word-wrapping, then play around with MaxWidth and TextWrapping.
WPF's layout system is amazingly powerful. Learn it. Don't fight it by using hard-coded layouts and then complaining that your hard-coded layouts suck.
I'm a developer who's trying to get the hang of Blend. I've always used Blend to mess with control templates and such, but I'm trying to get the hang of using it for basic UI design, since I figure it's probably a bit faster than typing the XAML up manually in Visual Studio.
Right now I'm just trying to create a basic Grid, but I'm seeing two default behaviors that I'm hoping someone can show me how to change.
1) When I hover my mouse outside of the design surface, I see the temporary yellow line to show up, where the new Grid Column / Row will be when I click. The problem is that the newly created rows are set to heights like 0.2297* How do I get Blend to attach regular heights, like 250?
2) Ignoring 1), once I have some rows and columns, when I drag a button, or combo box, etc, onto one of the cells, it drops it exactly where I release the mouse, while adding some large margins to position it there. Is it possible to tell blend to just drop the control into the cell, and leave the margins alone?
Grids are awesome but it takes a bit of play to get proficient at working with them in Blend. Here are some tips to get you started (I cover this in detail in chapter 4 of my book).
1) When you use the snap lines to create rows and columns Blend automatically makes them relative (Star) sized, which is the behavior you are seeing. To change the row/column style to fixed (Pixel) sizes, click on the Padlock icons to the left and top of the desired rows and columns. Then, either edit the values in XAML or you can click near (but not on) the padlock to select the row or column. This will open the sizing properties in the Properties panel.
2) The short answer is "No". Blend will always add Margins when you draw the element in a cell unless you take care to draw them to the borders. This is too difficult and time consuming, so I just make sure I draw it somewhere inside my target cell. Now I can right-click the element and select "Auto Size > Fill" and the element will fill up the cell: no Margins, Width and Height set to Auto, and Horizontal and Vertical Alignments set to Stretch. [FWIW, addressing this is my number one feature request for Blend.]
I hope this helps.
To answer point 1) Blend is creating proportional grids so that the columns remain the same relative widths when you grow or shrink the grid rather than absolute grids. So if you want absolute grid widths you'll have to go in and edit the values by hand.
I find that it's easier to create the basic form in Blend and then tweak the values in the text editor - either in Visual Studio or Blend itself.
As for point 2) I've just tried this and as long as I click inside the column/row on the grid when placing a button it adds it to the correct column/row of the grid as expected. Select the button and then just double click inside the grid - this should add a button of default size where you clicked, but in the grid. (It would be much easier if I could see what you were doing).
I'm sort-of just nit picking here, but maybe there's a simple solution which will save me some time.
When I'm drawing my Winforms GUI in the designer, controls snap to certain points. I can align the baseline of the text of one control to that of another, I can align the left and/or top of one control to another, etc. This is all great.
What's great too, is that the controls snap to other controls spaced with their margins. This means that if I'm making a vertical array of TextBoxes, then I can have them equidistant in my GUI - it looks less messy.
However not everything snaps correctly, or at all. Say I have put in my TextBoxes and now I wish to reduce the width of my form so that there is no white space between the edges of the TextBoxes and the edge of the form. Additionally, I want the distance between the edge of the TextBoxes and the edge of the Form to be the same on the left as it is on the right. If I drag the right edge of the form to the left, towards the TextBoxes it will not snap. I'm left with either calculations to work out what the width should be, or a juggling act to gradually reduce the width until the TextBox is snapping to both the left of the right.
I'm not saying this process is particularly difficult or time consuming. It's just that if it were to snap, the whole process would be infinitely easier.
Is there a built-in option in VS2010, or perhaps an extension? Or maybe I'm just doing it wrong in the first place?
The snap lines in the designer work perfectly when moving or resizing any of the built-in controls. The only time that they don't work is when you are resizing the form itself.
I agree that it would be extremely convenient to have snap lines here, as well. I wish I knew of a way to enable this. But unfortunately, I don't believe that there is one.
The workarounds are either to calculate the proper size mathematically, or guess at resizing the form then check your work by dragging one of the controls (and using the snap lines that appear). I go through the same "juggling act" that you describe on an unfortunately regular basis.
Whenever a control needs to be positioned so that it "snaps" to a form edge I usually move (or resize) the controls to the correct size first, and then change the controls "Anchor" property of those controls to be anchored to the corresponding form edge (even if the form itself won't be allowed to resize).
That way whenever I resize the form, the controls position relative to that form remains the same, simply resizing or moving the control as required (depending on the Anchor property chosen).
I completely agree that the ability to "snap" the form to controls when resizing the form would be extremely useful, but its normally possible to work-around using the anchor property in this way - the times when its doesn't work (such as when a form consists entirely of a column of text-boxes is a fixed height), I'm afraid you need to resort to calculations, but I find that most of my dialogs are resizable.
TextBox seems to work differently from others...
Say you want a different font, rounded corners, different colors, a tiled image for the background, reduced padding above/below the text (when I change the font on an individual TextBox they get a little too tall but there's a lot of wasted space), etc. How do you do this in Blend 4?
I'd like it to be in App.xaml so that it's used by default for all TextBox controls in the app.
I think everything you mentioned can be done using controltemplates.What is not working ?
Check this link
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms752068%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
It will get you started for sure