How do I layout a form in WPF using grid or other controls for maintainability

Asked 2010-03-08T04:06:44.003

I have a WPF form, I want to lay out a standard form onto it. Each form element will have a label, and then a control. Pretty standard stuff.

If I use a wrap panel, it can cause the label and the control to be separated, but I want them to stay together. Is there some WPF equivalent of <nobr/>?

Grid works, and allows for column spanning etc, however I really really hate that you specify the column and row on each control. This makes it extremely inconvenient to reorder or insert things into the list.

Is there a way to get the grid to use more HTML style column/rows where the items are a child of the row they are in, so that I can re-order easily?

Is there some other control that will let me layout a form easily?

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2 Answers

What you might be looking for is a stack panel. Using a vertical StackPanel will allow you to arrange your label and controls consistently. For each label and control you might want a horizontal stack panel like so

<StackPanel Orientation="Vertical">
  <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
     <Label Width="150">Name</Label>
     <TextBox Width="200" />
  </StackPanel>
  <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
     <Label Width="150">Date of Birth</Label>
     <DatePicker Width="200" />
  </StackPanel>
</StackPanel>

Now you can add, remove, edit, and reorder to your heart's content without worrying about columns and rows.

answered 2010-03-08T06:10:43.490

I had the same problem, reordering controls in a Grid based layout is a real pain.

So I've wrote a custom panel that does "form layout" (groups of two columns, all labels same size, all control same size,everything aligned, etc.), it's on my blog at: http://www.nbdtech.com/Blog/archive/2010/07/27/easy-form-layout-in-wpf-part-1-ndash-introducing-formpanel.aspx

answered 2010-07-28T05:36:32.673

How do I layout a form in WPF using grid or other controls for maintainability

2 Answers

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