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.
Related
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>
In the bottom "row" (inside of StackPanel with Horizontal orientation?) of my SilverLight control I would like to display two things:
"Save" button - to center-aligned
Text field with small text (kind of Version) - to be aligned to the right
How to do that? If I put both inside of stackpanel their alignement will be the same... Wrap panel just tie them together...
Please advise.
Thank you.
Within your stack panel create a grid with 2 columns then align each column independantly.
<StackPanel x:Name="Layout" Background="Black">
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="2*"></ColumnDefinition>
<ColumnDefinition Width="2*"></ColumnDefinition>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Label Name="Left" HorizontalAlignment="Left" grid.column=1/>
<Button x:Name="Button2" Content="And me!" HorizontalAlignment="Center" ></Button>
</Grid>
</StackPanel>
No the perfect syntax but its just to demonstrate the idea.
Hope this helps!
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.
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 was wondering if I can have 2 controls in a horizontal-oriented StackPanel so that the right item should be docked to the right side of the StackPanel.
I tried the following but it didn't work:
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
<TextBlock>Left</TextBlock>
<Button Width="30" HorizontalAlignment="Right">Right<Button>
</StackPanel>
In the snippet above I want the Button to be docked to the right side of the StackPanel.
Note: I need it to be done with StackPanel, not Grid etc.
You can achieve this with a DockPanel:
<DockPanel Width="300">
<TextBlock>Left</TextBlock>
<Button HorizontalAlignment="Right">Right</Button>
</DockPanel>
The difference is that a StackPanel will arrange child elements into single line (either vertical or horizontally) whereas a DockPanel defines an area where you can arrange child elements either horizontally or vertically, relative to each other (the Dock property changes the position of an element relative to other elements within the same container. Alignment properties, such as HorizontalAlignment, change the position of an element relative to its parent element).
Update
As pointed out in the comments you can also use the FlowDirection property of a StackPanel. See #D_Bester's answer.
Yo can set FlowDirection of Stack panel to RightToLeft, and then all items will be aligned to the right side.
For those who stumble upon this question, here's how to achieve this layout with a Grid:
<Grid>
<TextBlock Text="Server:"/>
<TextBlock Text="http://127.0.0.1" HorizontalAlignment="Right"/>
</Grid>
creates
Server: http://127.0.0.1
Could not get this working using a DockPanel quite the way I wanted and reversing the flow direction of a StackPanel is troublesome. Using a grid is not an option as items inside of it may be hidden at runtime and thus I do not know the total number of columns at design time. The best and simplest solution I could come up with is:
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<StackPanel Grid.Column="1" Orientation="Horizontal">
<!-- Right aligned controls go here -->
</StackPanel>
</Grid>
This will result in controls inside of the StackPanel being aligned to the right side of the available space regardless of the number of controls - both at design and runtime. Yay! :)
This works perfectly for me. Just put the button first since you're starting on the right. If FlowDirection becomes a problem just add a StackPanel around it and specify FlowDirection="LeftToRight" for that portion. Or simply specify FlowDirection="LeftToRight" for the relevant control.
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" HorizontalAlignment="Right" FlowDirection="RightToLeft">
<Button Width="40" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Margin="3">Right</Button>
<TextBlock Margin="5">Left</TextBlock>
<StackPanel FlowDirection="LeftToRight">
<my:DatePicker Height="24" Name="DatePicker1" Width="113" xmlns:my="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wpf/2008/toolkit" />
</StackPanel>
<my:DatePicker FlowDirection="LeftToRight" Height="24" Name="DatePicker1" Width="113" xmlns:my="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wpf/2008/toolkit" />
</StackPanel>
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<TextBlock Text="Left" />
<Button Width="30" Grid.Column="1" >Right</Button>
</Grid>
If you are having a problem like the one I had where labels were centered in my vertical stack panel, make sure you use full width controls. Delete the Width property, or put your button in a full-width container that allows internal alignment. WPF is all about using containers to control the layout.
<StackPanel Orientation="Vertical">
<TextBlock>Left</TextBlock>
<DockPanel>
<Button HorizontalAlignment="Right">Right</Button>
</DockPanel>
</StackPanel>
Vertical StackPanel with Left Label followed by Right Button
I hope this helps.
for windows 10
use relativePanel instead of stack panel, and use
relativepanel.alignrightwithpanel="true"
for the contained elements.
Maybe not what you want if you need to avoid hard-coding size values, but sometimes I use a "shim" (Separator) for this:
<Separator Width="42"></Separator>