WPF window resizes when ListBox scrolled - c#

I want to have my window size to the items in the listbox. The listbox contains variable lenght strings (20 to 120 chars). When I scroll the listbox and longer strings in the listbox scroll off the display the listbox shrinks and my window shrinks with it. How can I keep my window size fixed as the user scrolls and yet still have the window initially size to content. You know, cake and eat it too.
<Window x:Class="MyApp.MyDialog
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:local="clr-namespace:MyApp"
xmlns:sys="clr-namespace:System;assembly=mscorlib"
Title="My Dialog" MaxHeight="600" SizeToContent="WidthAndHeight" ShowInTaskbar="False" Width="Auto" Height="Auto" Loaded="Window_Loaded">
<Grid Width="Auto" Height="Auto" Margin="5,5,5,5">
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto"></RowDefinition>
<RowDefinition></RowDefinition>
<RowDefinition Height="48" ></RowDefinition>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition></ColumnDefinition>
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Grid.Row="0" >
<TextBlock>Total: </TextBlock>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding myData.Count}"></TextBlock>
</StackPanel>
<ListBox Grid.Row="1" ItemsSource="{Binding myData}"/>
<Button Grid.Row="2" VerticalAlignment="Center" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Height="28" Click="buttonOK_Click" Margin="0,5,0,5" IsDefault="True" Name="buttonOK" Width="75">OK</Button>
</Grid>

I think you should remove your sizetocontent property and programatically resize your windows as you wish based on your listbox content.

I have, on occasion, had the requirement that a window size to fit its content initially, then keep the size fixed unless explicitly resized. Typically, I would just hook the window's ContentRendered event, and clear out the SizeToContent property in the event handler (and also unhook the event). This ensures that layout has fully completed, and the window has been shown and its bounds fully computed by the time you revert to a fixed size.
This isn't the best solution in the world, and it breaks down in cases where your content isn't fully available when the ContentRendered event fires. The most likely example I can think of would be if data in your view model is not yet available, and, consequently, your view is not fully populated yet. This may not be an issue for you--it depends on your design and whether you are doing any deferred/async data loading. But it works in simpler scenarios, and it has the virtue of being simple to implement.

Related

How can I make a ScrollViewer properly size dynamically with a StackPanel?

For reference, this is a chat application. This should give you some idea of a final goal.
Additionally, I am very new to WPF. This is one of my first applications and I am making this as a proof of concept. I've been using Windows Forms up until this point, so any comparison or reference to it would help me understand a bit better.
So, the issue at hand:
The chat box for my chat application is a StackPanel (should it be?) which is programmatically populated with TextBlock elements. I need to find a way to scroll down this StackPanel once the available space runs out. I also need it to automatically scroll to the bottom (like a chat would; you wouldn't be able to see the most recent message otherwise).
The question: How can I make a ScrollViewer properly size dynamically with a StackPanel?
Additionally, I also need this StackPanel to size dynamically as the window is sized. This, in turn, would affect the scroll bar.
My current "solution" is to use a ScrollViewer with the StackPanel nested. However, the ScrollViewer and StackPanel do not size properly with a change in window size, as shown in screenshot #2. The XAML code and a screenshot of the designer is shown below.
<Window x:Name="Main" x:Class="dprCxUiDemoWpf.MainWindow"
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:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
xmlns:local="clr-namespace:dprCxUiDemoWpf"
mc:Ignorable="d"
Title="MainWindow" Height="450" Width="800">
<Grid Background="#FF171717">
<TextBox x:Name="ChatBox" TextWrapping="Wrap" Background="#FF4F4F4F" Foreground="White" VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" RenderTransformOrigin="-0.118,12.093" Margin="146,0,0,1" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" Height="46" BorderBrush="#FFFF00F3" KeyDown="ChatBox_KeyDown"/>
<Image x:Name="DprLogo" Source="/dprCxUiDemoWpf;component/Images/logo1.png" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="60" Margin="10,0,0,10" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" Width="123"/>
<ScrollViewer Background="Red" Height="Auto" Width="Auto" ScrollViewer.CanContentScroll="True" Margin="146,0,0,0" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Top" MinHeight="372">
<StackPanel x:Name="ChatPanel" Height="Auto" Width="Auto" Background="DimGray" ScrollViewer.CanContentScroll="True" />
</ScrollViewer>
</Grid>
</Window>
(source: gcurtiss.dev)
Please note the following regarding the first screenshot:
A. The black column (containing the logo) is simply the background color of the window; there is nothing there.
B. The gray portion is ChatBox (the StackPanel)
C. The pink highlighted box below is the text box where messages are entered.
I appreciate and accept any and all help!
You have to use the Grid panel properly. You layout its children by defining rows and columns. Grid is a column/row based layout container. Then configure row and column definitions to control the resize behavior of the cells and their content.
Using absolute positioning and sizes will of course prevent controls from responding to their parent's size changes. Most control stretch to fit the available space. But this requires dimension properties being set to Auto.
You said you are "more of a hands-on learner", but you should still read some documentations. Otherwise you will significantly slow down your progress until stagnation.
There are tons of blogs waiting for you to read them. To poke around in the dark will get you nowhere. You need at least to know the basics. Instead of waiting 13+ hours for a copy & paste ready answer, you could have finished multiple tutorials already and solve this on your own. Success is a good feeling. This is a very trivial problem.
Find yourself a good tutorial that you find easy to understand and start to experiment with the Grid after reading it.
According to your posted code, you obviously have zero idea how this panel works and how you can use it to align your controls.
<Grid>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="*" />
<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ScrollViewer Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Grid.ColumnSpan="2">
<StackPanel />
</ScrollViewer>
<Image Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0"
Height="60"
Width="123 />
<TextBox Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1" />
</Grid>
I need to find a way to scroll down this StackPanel once the available space runs out. I also need it to automatically scroll to the bottom (like a chat would; you wouldn't be able to see the most recent message otherwise)
You should read about data-binding and MVVM first. Usually you hold an ObservableCollection of items on your VM and bind them to eg a ListBox on your View.
Then you can scroll-down the ListBox, each time a new item got added to your collection:
private void ScrollRecordsListToBottom()
{
if (RecordsList.Items.Count == 0)
return;
var lastItem = RecordsList.Items[RecordsList.Items.Count - 1];
RecordsList.ScrollIntoView(lastItem);
}

How can I force a WPF TextBox to both fill the content space, but also NOT grow beyond the bounds of it's container?

I need to create a simple user control which is used for displaying a descriptive message to the user. The XAML definition that I have for this control is as follows:
<UserControl x:Class="Console.WPF.DisplayMessageView"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
...
mc:Ignorable="d"
d:DesignWidth="550"
HorizontalAlignment="Stretch">
<UserControl.Resources>
<!--Converters-->
<BooleanToVisibilityConverter x:Key="BooleanToVisibility" />
</UserControl.Resources>
<Grid HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="10,5,0,0">
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<TextBox
Grid.Column="0"
VerticalAlignment="Top"
FontWeight="Normal"
FontSize="10"
Padding="12,4,2,2"
Height="74"
Background="White"
BorderThickness="1"
HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"
HorizontalContentAlignment="Left"
TextWrapping="Wrap"
Text="{Binding DetailsText, Mode=OneWay}" />
<Image Source="..."
Stretch="None"
HorizontalAlignment="Left" VerticalAlignment="Top"
Margin="0,2,0,0"
Visibility="{Binding IsErrorMessage, Converter={StaticResource BooleanToVisibility}}"/>
</Grid>
</UserControl>
This UserControl is currently embedded within a sizable stack of containers (DockPanels, StackPanels, etc.) and user controls. However, it's first parent container is a DockPanel. It is the last control in the DockPanel and the LastChildFill property is set to true on the panel.
My problem is that when I use this user control, regardless of HorizontalAlignment settings, it alway sizes the user control to the size of the text field. This means that if the text field is short, the user control will be small and look odd since it's not filling it's respective content hole. If the text is a vary long block of descriptive text, it doesn't wrap and continues to expand and is hidden off the edge of the screen.
I can't figure out how to fix this. I also want to note that this application does not use scroll bars, which have been band from use, except on list boxes. I can't use scroll regions for this application, however, this message object absolutely must expand to fill the container but NOT expand any larger.
How can I accomplish this without constraining a fixed Width value on my user control instance? Instead, I need the user control to grow with the container, when the window grows as well.
NOTE
I'm adding the C# tag, just in case this has to involve a code-behind change. I really hope it's just a matter of setting the right set of magic-properties, which have eluded me, however, I'm not opposed to encoding a rock-solid code behind solution, so long as it specifically does what I need it to do.

How can I fill the screen with a TextBlock in WPF, but get it to add scroller if bigger?

I have the following piece of XAML code in my WPF application,
<StackPanel DockPanel.Dock="Top" >
<TextBlock Style="{StaticResource HeaderTextBlock}">Import Log</TextBlock>
<ScrollViewer Height="400" VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto">
<TextBlock Name="ImportFeedBack"></TextBlock>
</ScrollViewer>
</StackPanel>
which dispalys the ImportFeedBack string (in case someone is wondering, I'm using Caliburn.Micro as MVVM framework, so that the content of the TextBlock is bound by naming convention to a property of same name in my ViewModel).
The value can vary heavily in length. I want it to use the whole available space (but it should not resize the application!), and only if that is not enough, add a vertical scroll bar.
If I delete the Height="400" in the ScrollViewer, it resizes the app for big strings, and if I leave it there, it (obviously) just uses 400 height, but ads he scroll bar when needed.
How can I get it to use all the available space, and only if that is not enough, to creata a vertical scroll bar?
Instead of StackPanel use different panel like Grid or DockPanel. In the example below second row will take all available space not allocated by first row and not expand beyond that which is when scroll bar should appear when text is longer.
<Grid DockPanel.Dock="Top" >
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
<RowDefinition/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<TextBlock Grid.Row="0" Style="{StaticResource HeaderTextBlock}">Import Log</TextBlock>
<ScrollViewer Grid.Row="1" VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto">
<TextBlock Name="ImportFeedBack"></TextBlock>
</ScrollViewer>
</Grid>

ScrollViewer slow performance with DataGrid

I have the following scenario:
<ScrollViewer>
<Grid>
<!--many other controls-->
<DataGrid />
</Grid>
</ScrollViewer>
Now, when I bind DataGrid to large amount of data (around 10.000 rows) I am having very slow perfomance. In fact, i get OutOfmemory exception (and I have 8 GB memory)! I read somewhere that this is because ScrollViewer overrides DataGrid virtualisation (or something like that), but I don't know how to prevent that. If I remove the ScrollViewer, problem solved! The data loads in less than a second.
I want to keep the ScrollViewer (because of other controls) and have good performance. Is that possible? If not, is there any other solution-workaround?
A common workaround to these sorts of problems is to add an invisible "sizing element" in the same Row as the DataGrid, then you can bind DataGrid.Height to the ActualHeight of the sizing element. This way, your DataGrid will always consume the Height of the RowDefinition. Example
<ScrollViewer>
<Grid>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
<RowDefinition Height="*"/>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<Button Content="Some Control.." />
<Rectangle Name="sizingElement"
Grid.Row="1"
Fill="Transparent"
Margin="1"/>
<DataGrid Grid.Row="1"
Height="{Binding ElementName=sizingElement,
Path=ActualHeight, FallbackValue=1}">
<!--...-->
</DataGrid>
<Button Content="Some more controls etc.." Grid.Row="2"/>
</Grid>
</ScrollViewer>
The outer ScrollViewer effectively gives the DataGrid as much space as it likes, that way its height becomes huge, showing all rows at once. Just restrict the DataGrid by explicitly setting a height on it for example.

WPF: Order of stretch sizing

I'm creating a modal dialog window which contains three essential parts: a TextBlock containing instructions, a ContentControl for the dialog panel, and a ContentControl for the dialog buttons. Each of these parts are contained in a separate Grid row.
I have some specific constraints when it comes to how the dialog should be sized. The issue I'm having is with the instructions TextBlock. I want the instructions to be as wide as the ContentControl for the dialog panel. The instructions should then wrap and grow vertically as needed. Should the instructions not be able to grow vertically, then it should begin to grow horizontally.
Getting the instructions to be the width of the ContentControl and grow vertically was simple. The part I can't seem to figure out is how to get it to grow horizontally when out of vertical space. My initial thought was to create a class that extends TextBlock and override MeasureOverride. However, that method is sealed. Currently, I'm playing with the idea of have the dialog Window override MeasureOverride to calculate the available size for the instructions block.
Am I missing a much simpler way of accomplishing this? Does anyone have any better ideas than this? Messing with MeasureOverride seems like it will be a lot of work.
Here is some sample code to give you a general idea of how the dialog is laid out:
<Window
x:Class="Dialogs.DialogWindow"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
x:Name="dialogWindow"
ShowInTaskbar="False"
WindowStyle="None"
AllowsTransparency="True"
Background="Transparent"
ResizeMode="NoResize"
SizeToContent="WidthAndHeight"
WindowStartupLocation="CenterScreen">
<Border Style="{StaticResource WindowBorderStyle}" Margin="15">
<Grid>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<TextBlock
Margin="25,5"
VerticalAlignment="Top"
HorizontalAlignment="Left"
Text="{Binding Instructions}"
TextWrapping="Wrap"
Width="{Binding ElementName=panelContentControl, Path=ActualWidth, Mode=OneWay}"/>
<ContentControl
x:Name="panelContentControl"
Grid.Row="1"
Margin="25,5"
Content="{Binding PanelContent}"/>
<ContentControl
x:Name="buttonsContentControl"
Grid.Row="2"
HorizontalAlignment="Right"
VerticalAlignment="Center"
Margin="25,5"
Content="{Binding ButtonsContent}"/>
</Grid>
</Border>
</Window>
It appears as if what you really want to create a new Panel or derive from an existing one which would take place of what is currently your Grid. Panel is responsible for laying out your content so you should go that way instead of messing with Window.MeasureOverride.
How exactly do you want your TextBlock to grow horizontally and why do you want this? By growing it horizontally do you want it to grow the Window too?

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