I've just inherited an old WinForms app with a UI layout like this:
I'm tasked with updating several things about the software one of which is porting it to WPF which I've not previously worked with. I'm also told that the new WPF UI must look identical to the existing UI layout so I'm trying to figure out how to create that layout in WPF. I need a toolbar across the top of the window which stretches the entire width of the fixed-size window. Can I do that in the default grid or do I need a dockpanel to do that? Also, I'm assuming that I would use a grid with 2 columns and 3 rows to layout the six groupboxes?
Anything you can do with a DockPanel can also be done with a Grid -- the DockPanel is just a shortcut. So yes, you can do all this with the default Grid.
As for how to do the layout: it depends on how you want things to resize. Does everything stay proportional when you resize? If so, a single Grid with three columns (and percentage sizes for the ColumnDefinitions) would be fine. You would actually need four rows, though, not three -- the first RowDefinition would be for the ToolBar (using ColumnSpan="3") and would need Height="Auto" so it uses the ToolBar's default size; the remaining rows would be percentage-sized.
Try that, see if it works for you. If the resizing needs to be more complicated than just proportional, then post a second screenshot of the window at a different size, and we could try to help you further.
Personally I would use a DockPanel for the Menu/Content areas, then use a Grid in the Content Area to define the GroupBoxes
<DockPanel>
<Grid x:Name="MenuRegion" DockPanel.Dock="Top" />
<Grid>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="2*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
</Grid>
<Grid Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" />
<Grid Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="2" />
<Grid Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" />
<Grid Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="2" />
<Grid Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="0" />
<Grid Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="1" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" />
</DockPanel>
Of course, you could also make the Menu area part of the Grid and set it to span all rows, but I personally like keeping them separate.
Grid with 3 row (one for the menu). Since you have uneven spacing in the rows just a single column on the main grid. Then grid in the grid for the two column spacings.
Related
I'm having trouble vertically sizing the CheckListBox control from https://wpftoolkit.codeplex.com/. I'm a week-old newbie in WPF, so this is probably a general issue with (vertical) sizing.
Given my grid, I want the first 5 rows to size whatever size, they need to be, and in my viewport, I want the CheckListBox control in row 6 to simply fill the remaining space vertically.
My problem is, that when I fill the CheckListBox with a lot of elements, the control just expands / overflows the viewport. What I want it to do, is to assume the height of the remaining space vertically, which will make it display an inner scrollbar.
<Grid Grid.Column="0">
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Label Grid.Row="0">Some title</Label>
<RadioButton Grid.Row="1" GroupName="NameSortRadioButtonGroup">Firstname Lastname</RadioButton>
<RadioButton Grid.Row="2" GroupName="NameSortRadioButtonGroup">Lastname, Firstname</RadioButton>
<TextBox Grid.Row="3" Margin="0,5" />
<Label Grid.Row="4" Content="{Binding ElementName=MyCheckListBox, Path=SelectedItems.Count}" />
<xctk:CheckListBox
Grid.Row="5"
Name="MyCheckListBox"
VerticalAlignment="Stretch"
VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch"
Height="Auto"
/>
</Grid>
I have left out some parent elements to simplify. The Grid is in a grid, that's in a canvas, that's in a grid, and this outer grid is direct child of the Window element.
I have tried wrapping the CheckListBox control in a StackPanel with Height="Auto" (to eliminate the possibility of a bug in the CheckListBox) and also here to set the height of the CheckListBox using
Height="{Binding ElementName=CheckListBoxStackPanelWrapper, Path=ActualHeight}"
I also initially tried to do the whole thing with first a StackPanel and later a DockPanel instead of the Grid control.
In all cases, the CheckListBox just flows out of the window/viewport. If I give it an explicit height, it behaves correctly, but I obviously want my window to be resizable.
What shall I do?
To sum up comments because your outer control is a Canvas which does not restrict its child elements From MSDN:
Child elements of a Canvas are always given the full size that they desire
which means that Grid will be given as much space as it require. One solution is to remove the Canvas part or restrict the size size of Grid or expanding row
Been looking around on the internet and I think more people talk about docking images etc... to the screen. What I am looking for is that I want the images and everything else on the page to stretch or shrink depending on the persons resolution?
I Havant set my screen to a height or width, I just set the screen to maximise on page load but this doesn't seem to work?
Does anyone have a solutions on this i am using a WPF Application.
You can put all your controls below the Window in a ViewBox. That will scale your whole window content.
While the ViewBox control is good for resizing UI elements, there is a preferable way to achieve the same goal. UIs in WPF are generally created using Grid controls. These enable developers to take advantage of the resizing abilities that they provide. Virtually all 'fit to size' applications use Grid elements.
When using Grid elements with the objective of filling all of the available space, there are a few things that you should consider. You generally shouldn't use exact widths and/or heights, instead using the "Auto" setting. Also, you must have at least one column and/or width dimension set to "*"... this will take up all of the remaining space:
<Grid>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<TextBlock Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Text="Top left" Background="LightSeaGreen" Padding="20" />
<TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0" Text="Bottom left" Background="LightBlue" Padding="20" />
<TextBlock Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="1" Text="Top right" Background="LightGreen" Padding="20" />
<TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1" Text="Bottom left" Background="LightCoral" Padding="20" />
</Grid>
I have a user control that need the 1st and 3rd column to have the same width at all time.
My code is a follows:
<UserControl x:Class="UserControls.ListBoxSelector"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml">
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="5*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="5*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<ListBox x:Name="ListBox_Source" Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="0" />
<StackPanel Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="0" Orientation="Vertical">
<Button Content=">" Click="Button_Add_Click"/>
<Button Content="<" Click="Button_Remove_Click" />
</StackPanel>
<ListBox x:Name="ListBox_Destination" Grid.Column="2" Grid.Row="0" />
</Grid>
</UserControl>
The result is not as expected as column 3 (ListBox_Destination) is not expanded at all.
Isn't the 5* in ColumnDefinition enough to force the 2 listbox to the same width??
UPDATED : Sorry that I forgot to mention that the problem only occurs when I put the control inside a RibbonGroup using Microsoft Ribbon for WPF
Sometimes, when you put your control in certian types of layout controls (like a StackPanel), it won't size as expected because the parent layout will only size the child to it's minimum desired size (just enough to show the content). This may be why you are seeing this when you put it in the RibbonGroup. Try giving your Grid a Width or MinWidth and see if that makes a difference.
yes it forces the columns 1 and 3 to be of the same size, but it doesnt gaurentee the content (listboxes) inside the colulms will be of the same size. You have to set the size of content to take up whole space
Suppose you have a window with multiple buttons such as Ok/Cancel or Yes/No/Cancel. All the buttons need to be the same width. Obviously this could be done by just guessing a number and hardwiring all of them to that number.
Is there a better way to do it, one that would take into account preferred/recommended sizes (just how wide should an Ok button be anyway? This is not a rhetorical question, I actually don't know the answer!), what's needed by the text of the longest caption, what happens if the font size is increased etc?
Another, perhaps simpler, way to do this is to use the SharedSizeGroup property on the ColumnDefinition and RowDefinition classes.
Columns (and Rows) in a WPF Grid can automatically resize to fit their contents - when SharedSizeGroup is used, columns with the same group name share their resizing logic.
The Xaml would look something like this ...
<Grid Grid.IsSharedSizeScope="True">
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="Buttons" />
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="Buttons" />
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="Buttons" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Button Grid.Column="1"
HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"
VerticalAlignment="Center"
Content="Ok"
Margin="4" />
<Button Grid.Column="2"
HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"
VerticalAlignment="Center"
Content="Cancel"
Margin="4" />
<Button Grid.Column="3"
HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"
VerticalAlignment="Center"
Content="Long Button Caption"
Margin="4" />
</Grid>
There are several ways to do this:
1) Use a Grid for layout. Each Button gets its own Column, which is Star-sized. That way, all columns are the same size:
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Button Grid.Column="0">Yes</Button>
<Button Grid.Column="1">No</Button>
<Button Grid.Column="2">Cancel</Button>
</Grid>
2) You can have one item as "master size" and bind the width of all others to this item's width.
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
<Button Name="MasterButton" Width="100">Yes</Button>
<Button>
<Button.Width>
<Binding ElementName="MasterButton" Path="Width"/>
</Button.Width>
No
</Button>
</StackPanel>
EDIT: In actual code, you probably will have Width="Auto". Since the other widths are based on the "master width", the button with the widest width (widest text) should be chosen.
Use a "master" control, like in Daniel's answer, but bind to the "ActualWidth" attribute instead of "Width":
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
<Button Name="MasterButton">Yes</Button>
<Button>
<Button.Width>
<Binding ElementName="MasterButton" Path="ActualWidth"/>
</Button.Width>
No
</Button>
</StackPanel>
This way, the value is taken from the master control at run time, after minimum and maximum width and all other layout calculations have been taken into account. Binding to "Width" binds to whatever you happen to put into the attribute at compile time, which may not be the width that is really used.
Also, the binding can be written shorter like
<Button Width="{Binding ElementName=MasterButton, Path=ActualWidth}"/>
According to the MS User Experience Interaction Guidelines for Windows 7 and Windows Vista (p61), standard dimensions for command buttons are 50x14 DLU actual size (75x23 pixels). The guidelines further suggest you "try to work with [these] default widths and heights." Obviously, if you need more width to fit a clear label, then take more width.
These answers are great if you have a fixed number or fixed layout for the buttons, but if like me there is a dynamic number of buttons coming from a binding and contained in a ItemsControl then this is not feasible. But there is a simple way and it still involves used the sharedsize property of Grid.
DataTemplate:
<DataTemplate x:Key="ODIF.Mapping">
<Button HorizontalContentAlignment="Left" Background="#FFEEEEEE" BorderBrush="#FFBDBDBD">
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" SharedSizeGroup="PluginButtonsWidth"/>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" SharedSizeGroup="PluginButtonsIconHeight"/>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" SharedSizeGroup="PluginButtonsNameHeight"/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Image Width="32" Height="32" Source="{Binding PluginIcon}" RenderOptions.BitmapScalingMode="HighQuality"/>
<TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Text="{Binding PluginName}"/>
</Grid>
</Button>
</DataTemplate>
Parent container:
<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding MappingPlugins, ElementName=page}" ItemTemplate="{StaticResource ODIF.Mapping}">
<ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
<ItemsPanelTemplate>
<WrapPanel Grid.IsSharedSizeScope="True"/>
</ItemsPanelTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
</ItemsControl>
Essentially the button's content can itself be a Gird which then you can place your labels and icons as needed in, but even though the buttons do not reside in the same grid (they each are their own) the grid can still share it size so long as you set the root container's (ItemsControl) property of Grid.IsSharedSizeScope to True.
This will force the content grid of each button to be the same exact size based on the largest one while not having to have the Buttons themselves in a predefined grid.
In the most general case, you want to create a
Style in your section, then apply this style as desired. Now when you change the style, all buttons change.
Or you can change the Content of the button so that it autosizes to the text.
I have a grid with 4 buttons...1 row, 4 columns. I am looking for a way to visually group the two buttons on the left from the two on the right. I was looking for a way to do this with a separator but it doesnt seem to be playing nice with Grid, preferring StackPanel.
Is this the right control?
If so, how does one make the thing separate the columns (populated with buttons in this case)?
Thanks.
In case anyone else stumbles across this, easiest solution:
<Separator Style="{StaticResource {x:Static ToolBar.SeparatorStyleKey}}" />
Have you tried a GridSplitter?
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Height="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Height="Auto" />
<ColumnDefinition Height="100" />
<ColumnDefinition Height="100" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Button/>
<Button/>
<GridSplitter ResizeDirection="Columns" Grid.Column="2" Height="Auto" Width="4" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" Margin="0"/>
<Button/>
</Grid>
I usually use the simple choice to add a column with a fixed width between the buttons
You can actually use a different background color or insert an image
You can use Separator if you style it correctly. By default it creates a horizontal line. You have to apply different styling to make it vertical.
See this post for how to style it as a vertical line in a WPF Grid:
CodeProject discussion
The discussion also mentions that StatusBar applies some styling to Separator elements, as long as you don't wrap them in StatusBarItems. Perhaps StackPanel does something similar.