Should it be used for all sizable forms, or only when it is not easy to guess that a form is sizable? Is there a GUI convention to use it?
Any link to a documentation would be appreciated.
According to the Vista User Experience Guidelines:
Resizable windows no longer must show the resize glyph in the lower-right corner, because:
All sides and edges of a window are
resizable, not just the lower-right
corner.
The glyph requires a status
bar to display, yet many resizable
windows don't provide status bars.
The resizable window borders and
resize pointers are more effective
at communicating that a window is
resizable than the resize glyph.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511262.aspx
Related
Using .Net 4.8 and Windows Forms, my toolstrip menus with check marks appear normally at 100%, but when the monitor is set to something larger (e.g. 150%), the menu check mark appears far too small, and located in the upper-left of the menu item.
Is there a way to override the painting of the check mark for use on high DPI monitors?
(Using per-monitor DPI scaling, all other form controls draw correctly thanks to the scaling improvements starting in .Net 4.7.2
Turns out the problem wasn't really the checkmarks at all; it was the imagealign of the menu item (apparently, used to align the checkmark when there is no menu image) Setting that to be centered fixed the issue.
Let's suppose we have the designed the layout of some WPF application to be used on standard Full HD screen 1920x1080. Then we need to rotate the screen and install it in a box that is mounted on kiosk PC but in Portrait orientation.
I need to find a way on how to rotate the screen easily or at least in some more elegant way.
I tried to use use RenderTransform and RotateTransform applied to the contents of the window but this rotates the image and of course not the layout.
The controls remain of the same width and height.
Is there a way to do it automatically or should I take each control and change it properties one by one ?
The problem is present for TextBlocks and TextBoxes. They are intended to be used horizontally. You can rotate it but the layout is calculated based to it's horizontal width.
BTW. Rotation of the entire window is not allowed. It throws an exception.
It looks like that I have found the solution myself. If we choose the Layout transform instead of RenderTransform then the visual system does the arrangement and measurement of the layout automatically before the rendering.
The WPF framework does the job in this order
LayoutTransform
Measure
Arrange
RenderTransform
Render
This is best described here LAYOUTTRANSFORM VS. RENDERTRANSFORM - WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?
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 newbie. Designing a form that can be resized, and I want my textboxes, labels and buttons to resize with the form, can someone tell me how to do this?
It depends on the type of layout you need. The "basic tools" you have to do that are following properties: Anchor and Dock.
Anchor
With the Anchor property you "attach" a side of an element to a side of its container. For example if you place a button in the bottom-right corner of a window and you set "Bottom, Right" as Anchor then when you'll resize the form the button will keep its relative position to that corner.
Now imagine you place a multiline text-box in the form, resize as needed (for example 4 px from top, left and right border and 128 px height) and set the Anchor property to "Left, Top, Right". When you'll resize the form that control will keep its height but it'll resize to keep its margins (so if you'll make the form wider its width will be increased).
Dock
Dock is different. With docking you "say" to the Layout Manager to use all available space in one direction. For example if you set to Left then your control will keep its width but it'll use all the available height and its location will be most left as possible.
You may have more than one control docked in a container, imagine you have 5 textbox with Top docking inside a form. They'll be stacked to the top of the form using all the width (and resizing). Another example: a Top docked control (as a banner) and a "Fill" docked control (as main content). Remember that with docking the order of controls matters (if you first place the "Fill" control it'll use ALL the available space and the "Top" dock control will overlap).
Even more
Moreover you have some layout controls too (tables and stacks). They're really easy to use and a 30 minutes of "experiments" will clarify much better than a long text.
I am developing a form in .NET Compact Framework, which hosts a variable number of controls. Every control should have the same width as the form. When there are only a few controls, no vertical scrollbar appears. When there are more controls than they can fit in one form, a vertical scrollbar appears. The width of the controls should then be modified, so that no horizontal scrollbar appears.
What is the best way to achieve this? I am interested in a solution that will work in all platforms/screen sizes and that can support screen orientation changes.
If I get this right, at one point, both a vertical and horizontal scrollbar appear, and you want only the vertical scrollbar? Doesn't setting the Anchor of each control to "Top|Left|Right" solve this problem automatically?
If every control is to be the same width as the form, why not just Dock every control to Top (or Bottom)? It'll take care of the resizing for you then. It might not look very attractive however, so I suggest adding in some empty Panels (docked the same way) to be used as vertical spacers.
I did some quick testing, and it seems, when you add controls, the panel raises the resize event when the added control tiggers the scollbars to go visible. The annoying part is here that the resize event is triggered a couple of times during startup :(
But knowing the compact framework, this might be your best shot at handling this.
Normally on the full framework you could if the DisplayRectangle is bigger than the size of the panel, but no such thing exists on the cf.
Hope this is of some help, I'll see if I can find anything more in the morning.