Introduction to WPF Layout

Why layout is so important

Best Practices

Vertical and Horizontal Alignment

Margin and Padding

Width and Height

Content Overflow Handling

Layout of controls is critical to an applications usability. Arranging controls based on fixed pixel coordinates may work for an limited enviroment, but as soon as you want to use it on different screen resolutions or with different font sizes it will fail. WPF provides a rich set built-in layout panels that help you to avoid the common pitfalls.

These are the five most popular layout panels of WPF:

• Grid Panel
• Stack Panel
• Dock Panel
• Wrap Panel
• Canvas Panel

• Avoid fixed positions - use the Alignment properties in combination with Margin to position elements in a panel
• Avoid fixed sizes - set the Width and Height of elements to Auto whenever possible.
• Don't abuse the canvas panel to layout elements. Use it only for vector graphics.
• Use a StackPanel to layout buttons of a dialog
• Use a GridPanel to layout a static data entry form. Create a Auto sized column for the labels and a Star sized column for the TextBoxes.
• Use an ItemControl with a grid panel in a DataTemplate to layout dynamic key value lists. Use the SharedSize feature to synchronize the label widths.

Use the VerticalAlignment and HorizontalAlignmant properties to dock the controls to one or multiple sides of the panel. The following illustrations show how the sizing behaves with the different combinations.

The Margin and Padding properties can be used to reserve some space around of within the control.

• The Margin is the extra space around the control.
• The Padding is extra space inside the control.
• The Padding of an outer control is the Margin of an inner control.

Alltough its not a recommended way, all controls provide a Height and Width property to give an element a fixed size. A better way is to use the MinHeight, MaxHeight, MinWidth and MaxWidth properties to define a acceptable range.
If you set the width or height to Auto the control sizes itself to the size of the content.

Clipping

Layout panels typically clip those parts of child elements that overlap the border of the panel. This behavior can be controlled by setting the ClipToBounds property to true or false.

Scrolling

When the content is too big to fit the available size, you can wrap it into a ScrollViewer. The ScrollViewer uses two scroll bars to choose the visible area.

The visibility of the scrollbars can be controlled by the vertical and horizontal ScrollbarVisibility properties.

<ScrollViewer>
    <StackPanel>
        <Button Content="First Item" />
        <Button Content="Second Item" />
        <Button Content="Third Item" />
    </StackPanel>
</ScrollViewer>
 

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 Comments on this article

Prerak Shah	Commented on 5.May 2009 Good Fundamental :)
Syed Ibrahim	Commented on 12.May 2009 Superb
shrek88	Commented on 17.May 2009 short and very useful
Enoya	Commented on 19.May 2009 very clear to understand
Charmis	Commented on 26.May 2009 Hi Christian, Thanks for the article. The "Stack Panel" link is broken. It points to StackLayout.html(which gives Article not found! ) instead of StackPanel.html
Christian Moser	Commented on 27.May 2009 Hi Charmis, ...thank you! I fixed the link.
Anil	Commented on 1.June 2009 Thanks for the nice and informative article Christian! How can I make any of these panels dockstyle->fill to the entite window? I was trying to fill the entire window with a canvas panel, but could not see any Docking property for it. - The window size changes, the canvas size remains the same :(
anonimo	Commented on 22.June 2009 supremo (y)
Prabhakar	Commented on 30.September 2009 Thanks Now i am confident on layouts usage and control orientation. Learned from this tutorial about padding and margin.
ironstone13	Commented on 23.October 2009 Thanks To the point and very concrete. Though some more depth would be good
Chaitanya	Commented on 2.November 2009 Good to understand
Doudy	Commented on 2.November 2009 Hi Christian, Thanks for this article, really I learned from you the basic steps in WPF. Thanks, I hope you complete it.
Raja	Commented on 4.November 2009 Thanks a lot , it is very nice artical
Malu	Commented on 6.November 2009 kinda Okay but can add more points
Monica	Commented on 9.December 2009 Very informative, I hope you can make an article about stretching the whole application in a window. :)
pooja	Commented on 4.January 2010 hey..its really gud...
sathya	Commented on 11.February 2010 Its really very helpfull, thank u
Ravi	Commented on 8.March 2010 hey.... u did a great job :) :)
Ela	Commented on 11.March 2010 For Beginners, very gud article!!! Thanks a lot.
Ramesh	Commented on 15.March 2010 Nice Informative article! Thanks a lot Christian!!!
Issahar	Commented on 23.March 2010 Thanks for this tutorial, It helps me very much
NullCoder	Commented on 23.April 2010 This tutorial is a very good starting point :D Thanks!
Dave	Commented on 26.April 2010 Too many technologies and not enough time! After writing code for 8+ years using Win32, MFC, Qt, VCL, etc., I'll probably end up in a padded cell if I have to learn another framework! :(
Ravi Vaish	Commented on 27.April 2010 Great Stuff.... easy to understand description is short but almost cover all which required.
Ravi Vaish	Commented on 27.April 2010 Great Stuff.... easy to understand. Description is short but almost cover all which required.
Ravi Vaish	Commented on 27.April 2010 Great Stuff....Christian!!! you cover all stuff in easy way.... thanks!!!!
johnny	Commented on 29.April 2010 Very nice tutorial. but i have one doubt.... U created this tutorial UI using html. why so.....
kk.tvm	Commented on 3.May 2010 Good and simple with illustration thanks Christian
Bhavesh Kaila	Commented on 6.May 2010 Great article.......
kullayappa	Commented on 11.May 2010 Really good for begginers...... thanks alot
将军	Commented on 26.May 2010 谢谢，有源码示例吗？
general	Commented on 26.May 2010 中国
Arvinth	Commented on 27.May 2010 Cilptobound is not working <Canvas Margin="50"> <Ellipse Canvas.Bottom =" 320" Canvas.Left="20" Height="170" Width="70" Fill="Plum" Canvas.ZIndex="10" ClipToBounds="True"/> <Ellipse Canvas.Top="30" Canvas.Left="50" Height="70" Width="70" Fill="SkyBlue" Canvas.ZIndex="2"/> <Ellipse Canvas.Top="50" Canvas.Left="30" Height="70" Width="70" Fill="Pink" Canvas.ZIndex="10"/> </Canvas>
Tejas Patel	Commented on 7.June 2010 Good Article. To The Point and very Concise. Thanks.
Rahul...	Commented on 8.June 2010 hey christian d article is quite impresssive man..handsoff 2 ur work..beginer must read ths article
.net_KING	Commented on 14.June 2010 Concept of layouts are taken from Jawa Swing. Although programming UI in JAVA is more complicated.
Raghav	Commented on 16.June 2010 U'r Awesome boss...nice article....
Gaandu Prasad	Commented on 18.June 2010 Faad diya boss!!!
Pali	Commented on 23.June 2010 Very useful.
Suresh	Commented on 3.July 2010 I Feel that It Will Be A Good Article For Beginners.It's Very Useful TO Me
Vidya Sagar...	Commented on 22.July 2010 Very good article on layouts, thanks
Vidya Sagar...	Commented on 22.July 2010 Very good article on layouts, thanks
Vidya Sagar...	Commented on 22.July 2010 Very good article on layouts, thanks
Vidya Sagar...	Commented on 22.July 2010 Very good article on layouts, thanks
Vidya Sagar...	Commented on 22.July 2010 Very good article on layouts, thanks
Vidya Sagar...	Commented on 22.July 2010 Very good article on layouts, thanks
Vidya Sagar...	Commented on 22.July 2010 Very good article on layouts, thanks
Vidya Sagar...	Commented on 22.July 2010 Very good article on layouts, thanks
Jagan	Commented on 24.July 2010 Good Stuff!!! www.Jobzlive.com
suresh	Commented on 9.August 2010 Good article. Thanks
Sugumar	Commented on 15.August 2010 Fantastic!! It’s really useful for beginners, you can think to publish a book
Spoelle	Commented on 17.August 2010 Thanks ! Very useful for a WPF beginner like me !
harsha	Commented on 23.August 2010 good stuff. but not enough for a beginer, plz send some advanced concepts like reports and all to my e-mail id
Ramesh	Commented on 3.September 2010 It's really pentatastic for beginners, I know its for us only
Ajith Puthur	Commented on 26.November 2010 Good... Nice Site...Thanks..
Ayappa	Commented on 26.November 2010 its really pentyastis amma.
Britto	Commented on 9.December 2010 its excellent
igor	Commented on 17.December 2010 Hey Christian, this site is amazingly helpful! I appreciate your work very much! PS: The SharedSize-Link leads to a 404.
feixiang	Commented on 28.December 2010 不错，认真看看~
Rajesh	Commented on 7.January 2011 Its Good Yaar..
lakshman...	Commented on 31.January 2011 its simply superb for learners r professionlas
Mustansar	Commented on 2.February 2011 Assalam-o-alaikum A lot help for beginners, I am gona present it to my fellows tomorrow :)
Vandip	Commented on 3.March 2011 Awesome buddy ! Thankz a ton ! :)
Vandip	Commented on 3.March 2011 Awesome buddy ! Thankz a ton ! :)
gdemmi	Commented on 5.March 2011 Awewsome article!
Johnson	Commented on 10.March 2011 Very good article on layouts, thanks
lalita patil	Commented on 25.March 2011 We learnt lot of things from this article,its so nice
Sanjay Patolia	Commented on 26.March 2011 Nice one it really gives good idea about using layout panels and use best practise out of it. :)
raja	Commented on 27.March 2011 hai its very good article
rashmi	Commented on 17.April 2011 Small, crisp. Nice one. Thanks
Om Prakash	Commented on 21.April 2011 Good, nice,helpful article...... Thanks Sir G Regard : Om Prakash Bishnoi
Muhammad Hanif	Commented on 20.May 2011 Great effort. Easy to understand.....Learning with out boring.....Really interesting.
manmohan	Commented on 6.June 2011 Great stuff to make us understand the usefullness of layout panel in a simpler way.
rahul	Commented on 8.June 2011 nice
Raj	Commented on 14.June 2011 nice article
zeceTeddy	Commented on 15.June 2011 Very informative post. Thanks for taking the time to share your view with us.
Anubhav Ranjan	Commented on 29.July 2011 Good article. Must read before starting development in WPF.
AS	Commented on 2.August 2011 Nice and clear for beginners
expert	Commented on 16.August 2011 good job...this helped me a lot
Jo	Commented on 17.August 2011 Could you please explain me how to add a toolbar into a grid by writing code in .xaml.cs file?
Jo	Commented on 17.August 2011 Could you please explain me how to add a toolbar into a grid by writing code in .xaml.cs file?
Jo	Commented on 17.August 2011 Could you please explain me how to add a toolbar into a grid by writing code in .xaml.cs file?
Jo	Commented on 17.August 2011 Could you please explain me how to add a toolbar into a grid by writing code in .xaml.cs file?
Jo	Commented on 17.August 2011 Could you please explain me how to add a toolbar into a grid by writing code in .xaml.cs file?
Saj	Commented on 1.September 2011 Hi Mate, Is there a way to add WPF Window at a desired position, like if you have a panel when user clicks on buttons the new window opens in the middle panel or desired panel rather than coming up as New Window (more like MDI window approach) Thanks
MEE	Commented on 23.September 2011 Excellent