Looking for explanation for WPF Grid ColumnSpan behavior

I asked a question at http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/wpf/thread/5c7f5cdf-4351-4969-990f-29ce9ec84b87/ , but still lack a good explanation for a strange behavior.

Running the following XAML shows that the TextBlock in column 0 is width greater than 100 even though the column is set to width 100. I think that the strangeness may have something to do with it being wrapped in a ScrollViewer, but I don't know why. If I set a MaxWidth on the columns, it works fine, but setting Width does not.

Why is the width of column 0 not being honored?
Why does the column sizing behave differently when you remove the scroll viewer?

I appreciate any explanation! This is a real puzzle to me.

<Window x:Class="WpfApplication2.MainWindow" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Title="MainWindow" Width="300">
    <ScrollViewer HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" >
        <Grid>
            <Grid.RowDefinitions>
                <RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
                <RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
            </Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                <ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
                <ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
                <ColumnDefinition />
            </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
            <TextBlock x:Name="textBlock" Text="{Binding ElementName=textBlock, Path=ActualWidth}" />
            <TextBlock Text="column 1" Grid.Column="1" />
            <TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Grid.ColumnSpan="3" Text="text here that is wider than the first two columns combined" />
        </Grid>
    </ScrollViewer>
</Window>

Edit Report

Short Answer:
Its because of the combination of:
1. Presence of ScrollViewer which allows grid (if it wishes) to take any desired size.
2. The grid not having explicit width.
3. A column (Column 2) whose width has not been specified, which sets it to 1*, leaving its final size dependant on size of grid and other columns.
4. TextBlock which has colspan over three columns.

If you:
1. Remove the scrollviewer, the grid is allowed to grow only till the client area of window (which comes to be about 278 in your example), and the long textblock has to fit within this width otherwise its trimmed.
2. Set explicit width of Grid, which again trims textblock to fit.
3. Set explicit width of Column 2, which provides a fixed width to grid (100+100+width_of_col2), which again trims textblock to fit.
4. Remove the colspan, the columns which do not contain it and have fixed width defined, will take that width.

Here's what's happening:
This is crude and not exact explanation of the measure and arrange passes, however, it should give a fair idea.

To start with col0 is happy with 100, col1 with 100 and col2 with 0. Based on this grid's size would be 100+100+0=200. When Grid requests its children (textblocks) to be measured, it sees that first two textblocks fit within the width of their columns. However, the third textblock needs 288. Since, grid isn't having any width defined and its within a scrollviewer, it can increase its size if one of its child needs it. The Grid has now to increase its size from 200 to 288 (i.e. by 88). This means each column to which that textblock spans (all three of them) will expand by 88/3~=29 pixels. This makes col0=100+29=129, col1=100+29=129, col2=0+29.

Try this:
Include a rectangle, put it in col2 and set width of rectangle to 20.

answered 2011-04-15T18:23:37.233

Looking for explanation for WPF Grid ColumnSpan behavior

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