Develop Reference

Align controls correctly when using ItemsControl in WPF

Can someone tell me how to align and resize controls correctly when using the ItemsControl.
I want to have a description on the left and a TextBox on the right for multiple fields which are defined in an ObservableCollection to end up with something like:
First Name: [FirstNameTextBox]
Last Name: [LastNameTextBox]
Date of Birth: [DobTextBox]
but instead I'm getting this:
First Name: [FirstNameTextBox]
Last Name: [LastNameTextBox]
Date of Birth: [DobTextBox]
I want all the textbox to be aligned based on the largest <TextBlock>. If this was done directly in a <Grid> control, it would be straight forward as all controls are directly in the grid and you would just have the following columns definition defined
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto"/>
<ColumnDefinition/>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
I thought I could use the SharedSizeGroup property in the <Grid> but it still doesn't resize correctly. Instead it only displays the <TextBlock> stretch across the <Grid>.
Here's my code:
<Grid Grid.IsSharedSizeScope="True" Grid.Row="1">
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" SharedSizeGroup="Labels" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" SharedSizeGroup="InputControls" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ItemsControl Grid.Row="1" ItemsSource="{Binding SelectedTemplate.Fields}">
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="Labels"/>
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="InputControls"/>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Label}" Grid.Column="0" Margin="5"
VerticalAlignment="Center" Background="Red" />
<TextBox Text="{Binding Path=Value}" Grid.Column="1" Margin="5"
VerticalAlignment="Center" Background="Blue" />
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>
</Grid>
Any idea how I can resolve this?
Thanks.
UPDATE1: I cannot get this to work as I need it to. This is what I've got so far:
<Grid Grid.Row="1" Background="Purple">
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" SharedSizeGroup="Overall" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="Labels" Width="Auto" />
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="InputControls" Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding SelectedTemplate.Fields}"
Background="Yellow"
Grid.IsSharedSizeScope="True">
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Grid Background="Green">
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="Labels"/>
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="InputControls"/>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Label}"
Grid.Column="0"
Margin="5"
VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
<TextBox Text="{Binding Path=Name}"
Grid.Column="1"
Margin="5"
VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>
</Grid>
This ends up displaying my layout this way:
As you can see, my TextBox are correctly aligned based on the largest TextBlock but my ItemsControls is not stretched all the way across. I guess that makes sense as it is within the same grid where the ColumnDefinitions are defined.
Now, if I move the ColumnDefinitions' out this grid to the outer grid and remove all instances ofGrid.IsSharedSizeScope`, I guess the following:
Which once again is closer to what I need as my ItemsControl is now stretching all the way as I've set its Grid.ColumnSpan="2" and my TextBox are still aligned to the TextBlock and are stretching all the way across but the problem now is that the TextBlock should be smaller as the Column is set to Auto but they appear to behave as if the column was set to * and I guess I'm losing the purpose of using IsSharedSizeScope since it has been removed.
Now if I add IsSharedSizeScope="True" to the outer grid, I get the following result:
Again, this is close to what I want as my ItemsControl is stretched, my textboxes are also stretch but they are no longer aligned to the largest TextBlock.
Finally, if I add Grid.IsSharedSizeScope="True" to ItemsControl as originally suggested by #mm8,
<Grid Grid.Row="1" Background="Purple" Grid.IsSharedSizeScope="True">
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="Labels" Width="Auto" />
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="InputControls" Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid Grid.ColumnSpan="2" >
<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding SelectedTemplate.Fields}"
Background="Yellow"
Grid.IsSharedSizeScope="True">
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Grid Background="Green">
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="Labels"/>
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="InputControls"/>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Label}"
Grid.Column="0"
Margin="5"
VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
<TextBox Text="{Binding Path=Name}"
Grid.Column="1"
Margin="5"
VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>
</Grid>
<!--<TextBlock Text="Invoice Number" Grid.Column="0" Margin="5" VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
<TextBox Text="InvoiceNumber" Grid.Column="1" Margin="5" VerticalAlignment="Center"/>-->
</Grid>
I get the following:
Which brings me back to square one, though the definitions are different?
I need to achieve the following:
What am I doing wrong??
Thanks.

Try to set the Grid.IsSharedSizeScope property of the ItemsControl itself:
<ItemsControl Grid.Row="1" ItemsSource="{Binding SelectedBarcodeTemplate.Fields}"
Grid.IsSharedSizeScope="True">
Synchronizing the width of elements in an ItemsControl: https://joshsmithonwpf.wordpress.com/2008/09/06/synchronizing-the-width-of-elements-in-an-itemscontrol/

I eventually found the answer in the following article: WPF Tutorial - Grid Panel under the section: "How to share the width of a column over multiple grids".
As per article:
Columns and rows that participate in size-sharing do not respect Star sizing. In the size-sharing scenario, Star sizing is treated as Auto. Since TextWrapping on TextBlocks within an SharedSize column does not work you can exclude your last column from the shared size. This often helps to resolve the problem.
So my final XAML looks like this:
<Grid Grid.Row="1" Background="Purple" >
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="Labels" Width="Auto" />
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="InputControls" Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
</Grid>
<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding SelectedBarcodeTemplate.Fields}"
Background="Yellow"
Grid.IsSharedSizeScope="True">
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Grid Background="Green" ShowGridLines="True">
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="Labels"/>
<ColumnDefinition />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Label}"
Grid.Column="0"
Margin="5"
VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
<TextBox Text="{Binding Path=Name}"
Grid.Column="1"
Margin="5"
VerticalAlignment="Center"
HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"/>
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>
</Grid>
And the outcome now finally looks correct:
Hope this helps others!

Access Popup-Dialog inside a data template

I have just started learning windows app development. Like what do we call it (A dialog box, Contentdialogbox, Message Dialog)? Thanks in advance.
Okay I tried this since I have my data in a datatemplate inside a contentpresenter(Making a master detail view) now when user clicks on a icon the popup should open and also display the data related to that event selected inside that list.How do I achieve this since the popup dialog control is defined inside a datatemplate so in my cs file it does not recognize the control so I am not able to open the popup dialog.
Xaml Code:
<DataTemplate x:Key="DetailContentTemplate" x:DataType="data:Event">
<Grid>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="200" />
<RowDefinition Height="50" />
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Grid x:Name="Section2" Grid.Row="0">
<Grid.Background>
<ImageBrush ImageSource="ms-appx:///Assets/8.JPG" Stretch="Fill" />
</Grid.Background>
<TextBlock MaxWidth="250"
Margin="36,62,34,68"
FontFamily="Baskerville Old Face"
FontSize="30"
Foreground="{ThemeResource ToggleButtonPressedForegroundThemeBrush}"
TextWrapping="WrapWholeWords"
d:LayoutOverrides="Width, LeftPosition, RightPosition, TopPosition, BottomPosition">
<Run Text="Gravitas Premier League" />
</TextBlock>
</Grid>
<Grid x:Name="Content"
Grid.Row="1"
Margin="0,10,0,0">
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<StackPanel Grid.Column="0">
<RelativePanel>
<SymbolIcon x:Name="symbol"
Margin="0,0,5,0"
HorizontalAlignment="Left"
RelativePanel.AlignLeftWithPanel="True"
Symbol="Globe" />
<TextBlock HorizontalAlignment="Right"
VerticalAlignment="Top"
RelativePanel.RightOf="symbol"
Style="{ThemeResource BaseTextBlockStyle}"
Text="Category" />
</RelativePanel>
</StackPanel>
<StackPanel Grid.Column="1" HorizontalAlignment="Center">
<RelativePanel>
<SymbolIcon x:Name="symboll"
Margin="0,0,5,0"
HorizontalAlignment="Left"
RelativePanel.AlignLeftWithPanel="True"
Symbol="People" />
<TextBlock HorizontalAlignment="Right"
VerticalAlignment="Top"
RelativePanel.RightOf="symboll"
Style="{ThemeResource BaseTextBlockStyle}"
Text="SubCategory" />
</RelativePanel>
</StackPanel>
<StackPanel Grid.Column="2" HorizontalAlignment="Right">
<RelativePanel>
<SymbolIcon x:Name="symbllol"
Margin="0,0,5,0"
HorizontalAlignment="Left"
RelativePanel.AlignLeftWithPanel="True"
Symbol="Bullets" />
<TextBlock HorizontalAlignment="Right"
VerticalAlignment="Top"
RelativePanel.RightOf="symbllol"
Style="{ThemeResource BaseTextBlockStyle}"
Text="Rupee" />
</RelativePanel>
</StackPanel>
</Grid>
<TextBlock Grid.Row="2"
HorizontalAlignment="Center"
Style="{ThemeResource ScenarioDescriptionTextStyle}"
Text="{x:Bind description}"
TextWrapping="WrapWholeWords" />
<Grid Grid.Row="3">
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<SymbolIcon Grid.Column="0"
HorizontalAlignment="Center"
VerticalAlignment="Center"
Symbol="Phone" />
<SymbolIcon Grid.Column="1"
x:Name="People"
HorizontalAlignment="Center"
VerticalAlignment="Center"
Symbol="People"
IsTapEnabled="True"
Tapped="ShowPopupOffsetClicked"
/>
<SymbolIcon Grid.Column="2"
HorizontalAlignment="Center"
VerticalAlignment="Center"
Symbol="Mail" />
</Grid>
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
Now how do I open up the popup when the user taps the symbol with the name People and with necessary bindings of data with a observablecollection say EventList.

There are a lot of ways to implement the UI like in your screenshot. As you've added template10 in your question, I suppose you are using Template10 in your project. And in Template10, we can use ModalDialog to implement this. Here I use a Minimal Template 10 project for example.
Firstly, we may need to change ModalBackground to make the background color looks like what in your screenshot. As the ModalDialog we used here is the root frame created by Bootstrapper automatically, so we need override CreateRootElement in App.xaml.cs like:
public override UIElement CreateRootElement(IActivatedEventArgs e)
{
var b = Current;
var frame = new Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.Frame();
var nav = b.NavigationServiceFactory(BackButton.Attach, ExistingContent.Include, frame);
//change background
var background = new Windows.UI.Xaml.Media.SolidColorBrush(Windows.UI.Colors.Gray);
background.Opacity = 0.2;
return new Template10.Controls.ModalDialog
{
ModalBackground = background,
DisableBackButtonWhenModal = true,
Content = nav.Frame
};
}
Then we can edit Busy.xaml to implement the panel in your screenshot. In Busy.xaml, it's a UserControl used as the ModalContent of ModalDialog. For example,
<UserControl x:Class="T10Minimal.Views.Busy"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
xmlns:local="using:T10Minimal.Views"
xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
d:DesignHeight="300"
d:DesignWidth="400"
mc:Ignorable="d">
<Grid Width="300"
HorizontalAlignment="Center"
VerticalAlignment="Center"
Background="White"
CornerRadius="10">
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
...
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<TextBlock Margin="20,0"
VerticalAlignment="Center"
FontSize="24"
Foreground="Black">
Song Options
</TextBlock>
<Button Margin="12"
HorizontalAlignment="Right"
VerticalAlignment="Top"
Click="CloseClicked"
Foreground="Black"
Style="{StaticResource TextBlockButtonStyle}">
<SymbolIcon Symbol="Clear" />
</Button>
...
</Grid>
</UserControl>
The bindings might like the BusyText in the original control, you can change its type to your binding data's type and also change the SetBusy method. After this, you can call SetBusy method in your ShowPopupOffsetClicked method to open the "popup".
This is just a simple sample, you can refer to it to implement your own. And in the sample, I used the ModalDialog created as the root frame of the application. If you need more than one ModalDialog, you can refer to Search (and Login) Sample on GitHub.

Wpf set all columns to have the same default width

I'm trying to list a lot of items in a grid and i dont want to have to repeat "ColumnDefinition Width=40" from here on to infinity as i will need to add more TextBoxes with bindings.
Is there any way that i can set all columns to have width 40 so that i don't have to list everything?
I have tried using a UniformGrid, but i couldn't make it work properly.
<ListView ItemsSource="{Binding TreeViewData}">
<ListView.Resources>
<DataTemplate
DataType="{x:Type model:Character}">
<Grid >
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="50"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="40"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="40"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="40"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="40"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="40"/>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Type}" />
<TextBox Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding MaxHealth}" />
<TextBox Grid.Column="2" Text="{Binding Health}" />
<TextBox Grid.Column="3" Text="{Binding RegenerationSpeed}" />
<CheckBox Grid.Column="4" IsChecked="{Binding Invincible}" Margin="10,3,0,0"/>
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
</ListView.Resources>
</ListView>

It's probably more work than its worth, since you can't directly apply a Style for a grid's ColumnDefinitions. I would probably just set a resource with your value (40) and use that. At least you would only need to change the value one place, if you decided to change the value to 50 or something. You can do that in XAML (in your ResourceDictionary if you have several controls etc. or the Window.Resources, whatever) like this:
<Window.Resources>
<GridLength x:Key="stdWidth">40</stdWidth>
</Window.Resources>
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="{StaticResource stdWidth}" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
</Grid>

Controls vertical alignment with grid on the left and right

I have a custom listbox with a label and a checkbox in each row. I would like to have the label on the far left and the checkbox on the far right.
approach:
<ListBox x:Name="lbFieldsreq" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="100" Margin="513,232,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="100">
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Grid ShowGridLines="True">
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto"/>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Label Content="{Binding name, Mode=OneWay}" Grid.Column="0" HorizontalAlignment="Left" />
<Label Grid.Column="1" HorizontalAlignment="Center" /> <!--Empty column -->
<CheckBox IsChecked="{Binding ticked ,Mode=OneWay}" Grid.Column="2" HorizontalAlignment="Right" />
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
</ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>
current look:
Thx

Your XAML is mostly fine. All you really need to do is to set the ListBox.HorizontalContentAlignment property to "Stretch". This basically forces each item in the collection to stretch to fill with entire Width of the related ListBoxItem. However, you could improve this further by setting the Grid.IsSharedSizeScope Attached Property to True. Setting this in conjunction with the SharedSizeGroup property enables us to ensure that the column Widths of each column of the DataTemplate are the same. Try this:
<ListBox x:Name="lbFieldsreq" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="100" ItemsSource="{Binding Items}" VerticalAlignment="Top" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch">
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Grid ShowGridLines="True" Grid.IsSharedSizeScope="True">
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" SharedSizeGroup="LabelColumn" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" SharedSizeGroup="CheckBoxColumn" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Label Content="{Binding}" Grid.Column="0" HorizontalAlignment="Left" />
<!--Empty column -->
<Label Grid.Column="1" HorizontalAlignment="Center" />
<CheckBox Grid.Column="2" IsChecked="{Binding ticked, Mode=OneWay}" HorizontalAlignment="Right" />
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
</ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>

How do I have ListBox items fill the entire space?

Hi I see there have been many questions about ListBox and filling the entire space for the DataTemplate but I still cannot get anything to work. What I have is a ListBox and the DataTemplate has a UserControl. How do I get my UserControl to stretch the data to fill the space?
MainWindow XAML snippet:
<ListBox x:Name="ConfiguredItemsList">
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<local:ConfiguredItem DataContext="{Binding}" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" />
</DataTemplate>
</ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>
UserControl XAML snippet:
<UserControl.Resources>
<local:ImagePathConverter x:Key="ImagePathConverter"/>
</UserControl.Resources>
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="75" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid Grid.Column="0">
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<TextBlock Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" x:Name="NameLabel" Text="Name:" />
<TextBlock Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="1" x:Name="tbName" Text="{Binding Path=Name}" />
<TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0" x:Name="DescriptionLabel" Text="Description: " />
<TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1" x:Name="Description" Text="{Binding Path=Description}" />
<TextBlock Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="0" x:Name="TimeLabel" Text="Time:" />
<TextBlock Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="1" x:Name="Time" Text="{Binding Path=ChangeTime, StringFormat={}{0:h:mm tt}}" />
</Grid>
<Border Grid.Column="1" BorderThickness="1" BorderBrush="Black">
<Image Source="{Binding Path=WallpaperInfo, Converter={StaticResource ImagePathConverter}}" />
</Border>
</Grid>

Have you tried to set HorizontalContentAlignment to stretch on list box level?
<ListBox x:Name="ConfiguredItemsList" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch">
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<local:ConfiguredItem DataContext="{Binding}"/>
</DataTemplate>
</ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>
Note: I have set HorizontalContentAlignment property of ListBox instead of Item.