WPF: Grid with column/row margin/padding?

RowDefinition and ColumnDefinition are of type ContentElement, and Margin is strictly a FrameworkElement property. So to your question, "is it easily possible" the answer is a most definite no. And no, I have not seen any layout panels that demonstrate this kind of functionality.

You can add extra rows or columns as you suggested. But you can also set margins on a Grid element itself, or anything that would go inside a Grid, so that's your best workaround for now.

Use a Border control outside the cell control and define the padding for that:

    <Grid>
        <Grid.Resources >
            <Style TargetType="Border" >
                <Setter Property="Padding" Value="5,5,5,5" />
            </Style>
        </Grid.Resources>

        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition/>
            <RowDefinition/>
        </Grid.RowDefinitions>

        <Border Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0">
            <YourGridControls/>
        </Border>
        <Border Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0">
            <YourGridControls/>
        </Border>

    </Grid>

Source:

• Original Source
• and from Way Back Machine

You could use something like this:

<Style TargetType="{x:Type DataGridCell}">
  <Setter Property="Padding" Value="4" />
  <Setter Property="Template">
    <Setter.Value>
      <ControlTemplate TargetType="{x:Type DataGridCell}">
        <Border Padding="{TemplateBinding Padding}" BorderBrush="{TemplateBinding BorderBrush}" BorderThickness="{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}" Background="{TemplateBinding Background}" SnapsToDevicePixels="True">
          <ContentPresenter SnapsToDevicePixels="{TemplateBinding SnapsToDevicePixels}"/>
        </Border>
      </ControlTemplate>
    </Setter.Value>
  </Setter>

Or if you don't need the TemplateBindings:

<Style TargetType="{x:Type DataGridCell}">
   <Setter Property="Template">
      <Setter.Value>
          <ControlTemplate TargetType="{x:Type DataGridCell}">
              <Border Padding="4">
                  <ContentPresenter />
              </Border>
          </ControlTemplate>
      </Setter.Value>
  </Setter>
</Style>

Thought I'd add my own solution because nobody yet mentioned this. Instead of designing a UserControl based on Grid, you can target controls contained in grid with a style declaration. Takes care of adding padding/margin to all elements without having to define for each, which is cumbersome and labor-intensive.For instance, if your Grid contains nothing but TextBlocks, you can do this:

<Style TargetType="{x:Type TextBlock}">
    <Setter Property="Margin" Value="10"/>
</Style>

Which is like the equivalent of "cell padding".

Edited:

To give margin to any control you could wrap the control with border like this

<!--...-->
    <Border Padding="10">
            <AnyControl>
<!--...-->