Must be this article is very basic. But I have seen many silver light developers struggling to layout controls and objects in silver light. In section we will quickly walk through 3 different methods of layout for silverlight. In this article we will go through each of these layout implementation and do a simple sample for the same.
3 ways of applying layouts using SilverLight
Introduction
Other silverlight FAQ
Canvas, Grid and StackPanel
Canvas – Absolute positioning
Grid – Table layout
Stack – One above other
Source code
Must be this article is very basic. But I have seen many silver light developers struggling to layout controls and objects in silver light. In section we will quickly walk through 3 different methods of layout for silverlight. In this article we will go through each of these layout implementation and do a simple sample for the same.
I have collected around 400 FAQ questions and answers in WCF, WPF, WWF, Linq, SilverLight, SharePoint, design patterns, UML etc. Feel free to download these FAQ PDF’s from my site http://www.questpond.com
Silverlight FAQ Part 1:- http://www.dotnetfunda.com/articles/article293.aspx This tutorial has 21 basic FAQ’s which will help you understand WPF , XAML , help your build your first silverlight application and also explains the overall silverlight architecture.
SilverLight FAQ Part 2 (Animations and Transformations):- http://www.dotnetfunda.com/articles/article394-silverlight-faq-part-2-animations-and-transformations.aspx This tutorial has 10 FAQ questions which starts with silverlight animation fundamentals and then shows a simple animated rectangle. The article then moves ahead and talks about 4 different ways of transforming the objects.
There are three ways provided by Silverlight for layout management Canvas, Grid and Stack panel. Each of these methodologies fit in to different situations as per layout needs. All these layout controls inherit from Panel class. In the further sections we will go through each of them to understand how they work.
Canvas is the simplest methodology for layout management. It supports absolute positioning using ‘X’ and ‘Y’ coordinates. ‘Canvas.Left’ helps to specify the X co-ordinate while ‘Canvas.Top’ helps to provide the ‘Y’ coordinates.
Below is a simple code snippet which shows how a rectangle object is positioned using ‘Canvas’ on co-ordinates (50,150).
<Canvas x:Name="MyCanvas">
<Rectangle Fill="Blue" Width="100"
Height="100"
Canvas.Left="50"
Canvas.Top="150"/>
</Canvas>
Below is how the display looks like. When you the run the code the XAML viewer will position the rectangle object on absolute ‘X” and ‘Y’ coordinates.
Grid layout helps you position your controls using rows and columns. It’s very similar to table defined in HTML.
Below is a simple table with two columns and two rows defined using ‘Grid’. We have shown how the table display looks like. Using the ‘Grid.ColumnDefinition’ we have defined two columns and using ‘Grid.RowDefinition’ we have defined two rows. We have then created 4 text blocks which are then specified in each section using ‘Grid.Column’ and ‘Grid.Row’. For instance to place in the first column we need specify the ‘Grid.Column’ as ‘0’ and ‘Grid.Row’ as ‘0’. We have followed the same pattern for everyone and you can see all the textblocks are placed in the appropriate sections.
As the name so the behavior. Stack allows you to arrange your UI elements vertically or horizontally.
For instance below are 4 elements which are arranged in a stack panel element. You can see how the stack aligns / stacks the elements one above other. You can also stack the UI elements horizontally or vertically depending on your layout nature.
We have provided one single source code which has three XAML files explaining sample of each layout.You You can download the Source Code from the link at top of this article