We Keep Coding

Making a Scrollviewer fill the available space in a DockPanel

I somewhat of a WPF noob and am using a DockPanel to display the text content of an email in a TextBox in a ScrollViewer. The panel has a button bar and area for the email headers at the top, a button bar at the bottom, a panel at the right and the email itself should fill the remaining space dynamically:
[Banner at top, below which is a button bar and box with email headers. At the bottom is another full width button bar. The space between them is divided into a fixed-width panel at the right and a large text box for the email contents.]
http://rowlandsoftware.com/Screenshots/LongEmail.png
(The DockPanel sits inside a grid that provides the bit at the very top and is used when the email is not visible.)
The problem is that if the email is too short or too narrow, the textbox fails to fill the remaining width. In this screenshot, you can see some of the underlying stuff between the box and the panel:
[Between the text box and the panel is a column that is not filled. Part of what lies under it can be seen.]
http://rowlandsoftware.com/Screenshots/TooNarrow.png
The XAML is:
<DockPanel x:Name="EmailCanvas" Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="1" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" Visibility="Collapsed" Height="Auto">
<DockPanel x:Name="topButtonBar" DockPanel.Dock="Top" Height="50" Background="White">
<Button x:Name="btnReturn" DockPanel.Dock="Left" Content="Return to List" Click="btnReturn_Click" />
<Image Width="15" Source="Images/transparent.png" />
<Button x:Name="btnTextToggle" Content="Plain text" Click="btnTextToggle_Click" />
<Button x:Name="btnZoomOut" Content="Zoom Out" />
<Button x:Name="btnZoomIn" Content="Zoom In" />
<Image Width="150" DockPanel.Dock="Right" Source="Images/transparent.png" />
<Button x:Name="btnPrint" DockPanel.Dock="Right" Content="Print" Width="100"/>
<Image DockPanel.Dock="Right" Source="Images/transparent.png" />
</DockPanel>
<StackPanel x:Name="EmailHeaders" Orientation="Horizontal" DockPanel.Dock="Top" Width="Auto" Background="Linen">
<StackPanel Orientation="Vertical">
<TextBlock Text="Subject:" FontSize="16" />
<TextBlock Text="Time Sent:" FontSize="16"/>
<TextBlock Text="Other Recipients: " FontSize="16"/>
</StackPanel>
<StackPanel Orientation="Vertical">
<TextBlock x:Name="labSubject" Text="Subject:" FontSize="16" />
<TextBlock x:Name="labDateTime" Text="Sent:" FontSize="16"/>
<TextBlock x:Name="labSpare" Text="Other Recipients:" FontSize="14"/>
</StackPanel>
</StackPanel>
<DockPanel x:Name="bottomButtonBar" DockPanel.Dock="Bottom" Height="80" >
<Image Width="150" DockPanel.Dock="Left" Source="Images/transparent.png" />
<Button x:Name="btnDelete" DockPanel.Dock="Left" Content="Delete" />
<Image Width="150" Source="Images/transparent.png" />
<Button x:Name="btnSave" Content="Save" />
<Image Width="150" Source="Images/transparent.png" />
<Button x:Name="btnReply" Content="Reply" />
<Image Width="150" DockPanel.Dock="Right" Source="Images/transparent.png" />
</DockPanel>
<StackPanel DockPanel.Dock="Right" Orientation="Vertical" Background="White" Width="150">
<Button x:Name="btnAttachments" Content="Attachment"/>
</StackPanel>
<ScrollViewer x:Name="eTextViewer" VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch">
<TextBox x:Name="eText" Background="White" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" TextWrapping="Wrap" FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="18" IsReadOnly="True" />
</ScrollViewer>
<!--Image Width="Auto" Height="Auto" DockPanel.Dock="Bottom" Source="Images/white.png" /-->
<WebBrowser x:Name="eHTML" Height="Auto" DockPanel.Dock="Top" Visibility="Collapsed" />
</DockPanel>
The box is extended only to fill the available height, not the width. The documentation for the DockPanel.LastChildFill Property says,
If you set the LastChildFill property to true, which is the default setting, the
last child element of a DockPanel always fills the remaining space, regardless
of any other dock value that you set on the last child element.
msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.controls.dockpanel.lastchildfill%28v=vs.110%29.aspx
That does not appear to be the case: in my program it is only filling height, not width. LastFillChild=true is the default, but explicitly setting it to True or False doesn't make a blind bit of difference.
Interestingly, if you set DockPanel.Dock="Top" on the ScrollViewer, it fills the available width but not the height, leaving some of the underlying stuff showing between the text box and the bottom button bar. Again this is contrary to the documentation which says that the dock value set on the last child element is ignored.
Setting HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" to both the ScrollViewer and the TextBox and HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" to the ScrollViewer makes not a jot of difference.
So my question is, how can I ensure that the textbox fills the available space in the DockPanel even when the contents of the email are too short?
UPDATE: I have just noticed that if I remove the WebBrowser that is set initially to Visibility="Collapsed", then it works fine. I guess that its presence fools the DockPanel into regarding it as the LastChild even though it is Collapsed.
However, I need to toggle between displaying the email in the web browser and the text box, so removing it isn't an option. Both need to be treated as last child when they are visible. Any ideas?
UPDATE 2: So I wrap the scrollviewer and the web browser in another container, e.g. grid, which is the Last Child. Then I can toggle between the the two but they both fill the space.
Thanks guys. I wouldn't have got there without humiliating myself in public ;)

DockPanel will work, but beware of Collapsed items. Although the documentation says that a collapsed item has no effect on layout, with DockPanel it does if it is the LastChild.
The solution in my case was to add another container as the last child, and place the two items that I wanted to toggle between in that container. Then both will fill the remaining space in the panel.

WPF Button with multiple text elements for 10 foot gui

I am trying to create buttons for a 10-foot GUI using WPF. Each button requires a little more data than just a single text string and an image, maybe 2-3 strings located in different positions and some imagery.
I have tried
<Button Height="52" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Name="button1" Width="407">
<Button.Content>
<DockPanel LastChildFill="True" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch">
<TextBlock Name="textBloczk2" Text="ABC" TextAlignment="Left" DockPanel.Dock="Left"/>
<TextBlock Name="textBlxock1" Text="CDE" TextAlignment="Right" DockPanel.Dock="Right"/>
</DockPanel>
</Button.Content>
</Button>
But no matter which inner container I use, the button seems to disregard the layout from the DockPanel and the combined text ends up in the middle of the button. Am I doing something wrong or should I be using a different outer container ?

The problem seems to be that the DockPanel's width is so small that the Right and Left panels are the same width as your TextBlocks.
This seems to work as expected (setting the width of the DockPanel):
<Button Height="52" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Name="button1" Width="407">
<Button.Content>
<DockPanel LastChildFill="True" Width="300">
<TextBlock Name="textBloczk1" Text="Left" DockPanel.Dock="Left" />
<TextBlock Name="textBlxock2" Text="Right" DockPanel.Dock="Right" />
<TextBlock Name="textBlxock3" Text="Top" DockPanel.Dock="Top" />
<TextBlock Name="textBlxock4" Text="Bottom" DockPanel.Dock="Bottom" />
</DockPanel>
</Button.Content>
</Button>

Try to add "HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch" to your button. This way dockpanel will occupy all space inside the button.

Text longlistselector not completely visible

I have a little problem using the longlistselector (well more specifically the multilonglistselector) in windows phone 8.
I use binding to bind the name of an object to the items, the XAML code is as follow:
<Grid>
<TextBox x:Name="searchBox"
IsEnabled="{Binding IsConnected}"
HorizontalAlignment="Left" KeyUp="CheckKey"
Height="72" Margin="10,10,0,0" TextWrapping="Wrap" InputScope="Search" GotFocus="Select"/>
<toolkit:LongListMultiSelector EnforceIsSelectionEnabled="True" SelectionChanged="AdjustAddSelectionButton" x:Name="resultList" ItemsSource="{Binding Results}" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Height="434" Margin="10,87,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" >
<toolkit:LongListMultiSelector.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Grid>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Title}" TextWrapping="Wrap">
<toolkit:GestureService.GestureListener>
<toolkit:GestureListener DoubleTap="OpenArticleDetail" />
</toolkit:GestureService.GestureListener>
</TextBlock>
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
</toolkit:LongListMultiSelector.ItemTemplate>
</toolkit:LongListMultiSelector>
</Grid>
The Binding takes place perfectly, but the text is sometimes too long and doesn't fit the screen. How would I go about wrapping this text to another line?, I 'll give a screenshot here

You didn't really state any specific problem or question you want answered. Please try to be a bit more clear in the future.
If you don't like that the TextBlock cuts off words that it can't fit, then you have several solutions.
TextBlocks have a TextWrapping property, so doing TextWrapping="Wrap" will enable the TextBlock to resize itself to display all the content.
TextBlocks have the TextTrimming property, so writing TextTrimming="WordEllipsis" will replace any cut off words with an ellipsis.
If you want to keep the one line but also show all the content, you can put the TextBlock inside a Horizontal ScrollViewer, which will let the user scroll the text left and right. Not great, but a decent solution
Code for 3.
<ScrollViewer ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Visible">
<TextBlock Text="Text"/>
</ScrollViewer>

I added a huge right padding to my main TextBlock to work around this issue.
<phone:PhoneApplicationPage.Resources>
<DataTemplate x:Key="MyTemplate">
<StackPanel VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="0,-4,-50,0">
<TextBlock FontWeight="Bold" FontSize="18" Text="{Binding title}" TextWrapping="Wrap" Margin="0,0,0,6"/>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding text}" TextWrapping="Wrap" FontSize="30" Padding="0,0,125,0"/>
<Rectangle HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Height="1" Fill="#78c5a6" Margin="0,18,0,18"/>
</StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>
</phone:PhoneApplicationPage.Resources>

C# - Windows Phone - MaxWidth & MaxHeight property being ignored

I have some Canvases in a ListBox. Inside these Canvases I have some TextBlocks which have their text bound to them. However when I try to use a MaxWidth/Height property on the text block (or the standard Height/Width), the properties are ignored! So I end up with the text overspilling the Canvas in cases.
I would much appreciate any help on the matter, and I hope I'm not just being a blind idiot!
Oh, and here's the code (the TextBlock I'm talking about is the first one):
<ListBox Margin="0,-9,-12,0" ItemsSource="{Binding}" Name="listBoxNotes" HorizontalAlignment="Left" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="400" Height="548">
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<StackPanel>
<Canvas Height="175" Width="360" Background="{StaticResource PhoneAccentBrush}" toolkit:TiltEffect.IsTiltEnabled="True" Name="canvasNote" Tap="canvasNote_Tap">
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Title}" FontWeight="Bold" FontSize="26" Foreground="White" Canvas.Left="10" Canvas.Top="5" x:Name="Title" Width="100" MaxWidth="100"/>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Details}" TextWrapping="Wrap" Width="352" FontSize="24" Foreground="White" Canvas.Left="10" Canvas.Top="35" />
</Canvas>
</StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>
</ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>

The problem with this is Canvas does not limit the size of their children, and especially theTextBlock control will grow as much as it needs.
Many ways to solve your problem :
Do not use TextBlock but a TextBox
Do not use Canvas but another container such as Border, Grid, StackPanel...
Try to clip the TextBlock content
<TextBlock.Clip>
<RectangleGeometry Rect="0, 0, 50, 30"/>
</TextBlock.Clip>

WPF TextBlock Underline

I have a textblock of width say 500, but my string is just say "H" but I want to underline the whole textblock width not just under H what can I do?

You should use the property "TextDecorations" of the TextBlock. Like that:
<TextBlock Text="H" TextDecorations="Underline"/>

Just to add my 2 cents, The same effect as Talia's answer can be achieved at runtime through this code:
YourTextBlock.TextDecorations = System.Windows.TextDecorations.Underline;
For some reason VS2010 doesn't show Intellisense for the RHS, but it compiles and runs correctly.

<TextBlock VerticalAlignment="Bottom"
HorizontalAlignment="Center"
Margin="40"
Height="40"
FontSize="16"
Tapped="TextBlock_Tapped"
Text="Text"
Foreground="{StaticResource LightBlue}">
<Underline>
<Run Text="Text"/>
</Underline>
</TextBlock>

Your best bet would probably be to use a Rectangle positioned immediately below the text block, whose width is always the width of the text block. Like this:
<DockPanel LastChildFill="False">
<TextBlock DockPanel.Dock="Top" x:Name="blockToUnderline" Text="H" Width="76" />
<Rectangle DockPanel.Dock="Top" Fill="Black" Height=1 Width="{Binding ElementName=blockToUnderline, Path=ActualWidth}" />
</DockPanel>