WPF Grid layout panel with row height set to "Auto" - wpf

I'd like to have a Grid with a row on the top and bottom with either labels or buttons in them. In the middle I plan on using a ListBox. I want the ListBox to expand to use all the available space. It would be nice to not hard code the height of the other two rows. My XAML is below. How can I make the middle section expand automatically? Thanks.
<UserControl x:Class="WpfApplication1.UserControl1"
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"
mc:Ignorable="d"
d:DesignHeight="300" d:DesignWidth="300">
<Grid>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition />
<ColumnDefinition />
<ColumnDefinition />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Label Grid.Row="0"
Grid.ColumnSpan="3"
Content="Top Row" />
<ListBox Grid.Row="1"
Grid.ColumnSpan="3" />
<Label Grid.Row="2"
Grid.ColumnSpan="3"
Content="Bottom Row" />
</Grid>

Try setting the middle row to this...
<RowDefinition Height="*" />

Replace the middle
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
with
<RowDefinition Height="*" />

Related

XAML window doesn't look like what I want

I'm learning about WPF and I'm creating a window in XAML.
The window should look like this:
But when I run the program it looks like this:
The code is the following:
<Page x:Class="WpfApp1.ProductsManagement"
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:local="clr-namespace:WpfApp1"
mc:Ignorable="d"
d:DesignHeight="450" d:DesignWidth="800"
Title="ProductsManagement">
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="80" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="300" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
<RowDefinition Height="420" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<TextBlock
Margin="5"
Text="Search"
Grid.Row="0"
Grid.Column="0"/>
<TextBox
Margin="5"
Grid.ColumnSpan="2"
Grid.Column="1"
Background ="White"
Grid.Row="0"
Text="hi"/>
<DataGrid
Margin ="5"
Name="dataGrid"
Grid.Column="0"
Grid.ColumnSpan="2"
Grid.Row="1"/>
<Border
Margin ="5"
Grid.Row="1"
Grid.Column="2"/>
</Grid>
</Page>
Any comments or suggestions are welcome.
UPDATE
I'm taking the following code as an example:
<Page x:Class="WpfApp1.Discussion"
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:data="clr-namespace:BikeShop"
xmlns:local="clr-namespace:WpfApp1"
mc:Ignorable="d"
d:DesignHeight="450" d:DesignWidth="800"
Title="Discussion">
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
<RowDefinition Height="50" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<ListBox
Grid.ColumnSpan="2"
Margin="5"/>
<Button
Grid.Row="1"
Grid.Column="1"
Margin="5"
Content="Send" />
<TextBox
Grid.Row="1"
Margin="5"
Text="Type your message here" />
</Grid>
</Page>
And when I run the code it looks like this: (It works correctly)
Your RowDefinitions must be like this:
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="40"/>
<RowDefinition Height="*"/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
Right now you ask to fill the entire page for the first row and set the second row to a height of 420.
You must define a specific value for the first and * for the second.
You do not see the error in the designer because you set the second row to 420. Obviously you see the first row at 30. But when you go to fullscreen, the first row gets bigger.
Because your Row heights are incorrect. replace your RawDefinitions with:
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="40" />
<RowDefinition Height="1*" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>

Toolbar isn't showing overflow when hosted in UserControl

Hosted in a Window, I have a main UserControl composed of other UserControls.
One of these contains a ToolBar with a few Buttons on it. I place this at the top of my main UserControl by setting it's Grid.Row property to 0. However, when making the Window smaller, the Buttons just disappear and no overflow is shown. I've messed with the overflow properties a bit but no luck.
Here's the UserControl containing the ToolBar.
<UserControl x:Class="TestProj.Views.ToolBarView"
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"
mc:Ignorable="d"
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="706"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="319"/>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="40"/>
<RowDefinition Height="30"/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<ToolBar Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Grid.ColumnSpan="2">
<Button Content="Button1" />
<Button Content="Button2" />
<Button Content="Button3" />
<Button Content="Button4" />
<Button Content="Button5" />
<Button Content="Button6" />
</ToolBar>
</Grid>
</UserControl>
Here's my main UserControl which is hosted inside of a Window, and hosts the ToolBar UserControl:
<UserControl x:Class="TestProj.MainControl"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
xmlns:views="clr-TestProj.Views"
mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignHeight="737.239" d:DesignWidth="1026"
VerticalAlignment="Stretch"
HorizontalAlignment="Stretch">
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="256*"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="256*"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="256*"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="430*"/>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto">
</RowDefinition>
<RowDefinition Height="608*"/>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto">
</RowDefinition>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<views:ToolBarView HorizontalAlignment="Left" x:Name="OnyxToolBar" Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Grid.ColumnSpan="4" />
</Grid>
</UserControl>
And here's an example .gif of me resizing the Window, just the top where the UserControl containing the ToolBar is:
The problem is your fixed sized columns in your UserControl aka ToolBarView
you can not give to some control (does not matter if it is a ToolBar or not) a fixed size value and expect to have "dynamic size"
in your situation you could do something like this
change this
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="706"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="319"/>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
to this (for example)
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>

XmlDataProvider, XPath and ListBox

I've been playing with XamlPad. I thought I'd embed some XML into the XAML to give me a fake set of hierarchical data. I'm not having much joy. This compiles, but doesn't show the items in the list. (Edit: The hierarchical aspect is for later. For now I just want to get stuff appearing in a list).
<Page xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:sys="clr-namespace:System;assembly=mscorlib" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" >
<Page.Resources>
<XmlDataProvider x:Key="MyXmlData" XPath="ParentNode">
<x:XData>
<MyDoc>Wee
<ParentNode>Hi</ParentNode>
<ParentNode>Low</ParentNode>
</MyDoc>
</x:XData>
</XmlDataProvider>
</Page.Resources>
<Border BorderBrush="Green" BorderThickness="5">
<Grid DataContext="{StaticResource MyXmlData}" ShowGridLines="True">
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="1*"/>
<RowDefinition Height="2*"/>
<RowDefinition Height="3*"/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition />
<ColumnDefinition />
<ColumnDefinition />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ListBox Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0" ItemsSource="{Binding}" Background="LightGray">
</ListBox>
</Grid>
</Border>
</Page>
If you remove the XPath="ParentNode" from the XmlDataProvider, it adds the entire document, verbatim, to the listbox. I'd prefer to have two nodes in the Listbox, one for each ParentNode.
Okie dokie, the solution was simple enough, I added an empty namespace to the xml and then did the xpaths as usual. Here's the solution.
<Page xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:sys="clr-namespace:System;assembly=mscorlib" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" >
<Page.Resources>
<XmlDataProvider x:Key="MyDataProvider" XPath="MyDoc">
<x:XData>
<MyDoc xmlns="">Wee
<ParentNode>Hi</ParentNode>
<ParentNode>Low</ParentNode>
</MyDoc>
</x:XData>
</XmlDataProvider>
</Page.Resources>
<Border BorderBrush="Green" BorderThickness="5">
<Grid DataContext="{StaticResource MyDataProvider}" ShowGridLines="True">
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="1*"/>
<RowDefinition Height="2*"/>
<RowDefinition Height="3*"/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition />
<ColumnDefinition />
<ColumnDefinition />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ListBox Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0" ItemsSource="{Binding XPath=*}" Background="LightGray">
</ListBox>
</Grid>
</Border>
</Page>

Is there any shorthand for WPF column and row definitions?

I have a simple grid layout which is just hosting several labels and textboxes. Labels in the first column, boxes in the second.
Whenever I add a new box, I have to add an empty <RowDefinition /> in to my <Grid.RowDefinitions> block to allow it to occupy a new row. Since I don't have any style attached to these rows, is there some sort of shorthand that would prevent having to to this?
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="65" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition />
<RowDefinition />
<RowDefinition />
<RowDefinition />
<RowDefinition />
<RowDefinition />
<RowDefinition />
<RowDefinition />
<RowDefinition />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
No, there isn't a short hand method for this, but you could write your own solution, or use a framework where someone already has.
For example, the CODE framework allows you to define markup as shown in Listing 6 here. This uses a custom panel to greatly simplify the definition of common editing forms.
You could download the source and have a look at their implementation and tailor it for your needs.
You could use an Attached Property to create a shorthand syntax on your own.
I've created a sample here: https://github.com/thomasclaudiushuber/Wpf-Grid-Extensions
It allows you to write this:
<Grid local:GridExtensions.Structure="*,100|200,*">
</Grid>
And behind the scenes it creates this:
<Grid>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="*"/>
<RowDefinition Height="100"/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="200"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
</Grid>
You can subclass Grid and add any behavior you need.
Here is an implementation of AutoGrid that automatically inserts new rows for any AutoGridEndRow object as well as whenever Grid.Row is larger than current definitions count.
Usage as below:
<Window xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:my="clr-namespace:WpfApplication1"
Title="Window1" Height="300" Width="300">
<my:AutoGrid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="65" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Label Content="Label1" />
<TextBox Grid.Column="1" />
<my:AutoGridEndRow />
<Label Content="Label1" />
<TextBox Grid.Column="1" />
</my:AutoGrid>
</Window>

Scrollable Grid in WPF/Silverlight

I would like to build a WPF window which uses an outer Grid to split the screen into 4 parts. In the lower right quadrant, I would like to embed another Grid which is larger than the grid cell. I have been looking for ways to add a ScrollViewer (or use the Grid.ScrollViewer properties) but no matter what I try the inner grid does not resize or display the scrollbars appropriately.
I suspect it has something to do with not wrapping the inner grid with the correct panel with the appropriate sizing (and resizing) behavior which would force the inner grid to honor the scrollbars, instead of simply rendering too big (and being clipped by the other window).
The hosting window is defined like this:
<Window x:Class="GridScrollTest.MainWindow"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:local="clr-namespace:GridScrollTest"
Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="525">
<Grid x:Name="OuterGrid">
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="100" />
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<local:SSControl x:Name="Sheet"
Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1"
HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" Background="Yellow" />
<Canvas Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Background="LightGreen" />
<Canvas Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0" Background="LightBlue" />
<Canvas Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="1" Background="LightCoral" />
</Grid>
</Window>
And the referenced SSControl:
<UserControl x:Class="GridScrollTest.SSControl"
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"
Height="270" Width="600">
<ScrollViewer
HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch"
CanContentScroll="True" HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto">
<Grid x:Name="CellGrid" ShowGridLines="False"
>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="30" />
<RowDefinition Height="30" />
<RowDefinition Height="30" />
<RowDefinition Height="30" />
<RowDefinition Height="30" />
<RowDefinition Height="30" />
<RowDefinition Height="30" />
<RowDefinition Height="30" />
<RowDefinition Height="30" />
<RowDefinition Height="30" />
<RowDefinition Height="30" />
<RowDefinition Height="30" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
</Grid>
</ScrollViewer>
</UserControl>
I do not know for sure, but after trying your code in Blend, I think your problem might be that you have set the ColumnDefinition.Width and RowDefinition.Height to Auto. Try setting them to * and remove the Height=270 and Width=600 for your user control. This way, the outer grid fills all the available space in the window, and the lower right cell has scroll bars.

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