How to get controls in WPF to fill available space?

Solution 1:

There are also some properties you can set to force a control to fill its available space when it would otherwise not do so. For example, you can say:

HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch"

... to force the contents of a control to stretch horizontally. Or you can say:

HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"

... to force the control itself to stretch horizontally to fill its parent.

Solution 2:

Each control deriving from Panel implements distinct layout logic performed in Measure() and Arrange():

• Measure() determines the size of the panel and each of its children
• Arrange() determines the rectangle where each control renders

The last child of the DockPanel fills the remaining space. You can disable this behavior by setting the LastChild property to false.

The StackPanel asks each child for its desired size and then stacks them. The stack panel calls Measure() on each child, with an available size of Infinity and then uses the child's desired size.

A Grid occupies all available space, however, it will set each child to their desired size and then center them in the cell.

You can implement your own layout logic by deriving from Panel and then overriding MeasureOverride() and ArrangeOverride().

See this article for a simple example.

Solution 3:

Well, I figured it out myself, right after posting, which is the most embarassing way. :)

It seems every member of a StackPanel will simply fill its minimum requested size.

In the DockPanel, I had docked things in the wrong order. If the TextBox or ListBox is the only docked item without an alignment, or if they are the last added, they WILL fill the remaining space as wanted.

I would love to see a more elegant method of handling this, but it will do.

Solution 4:

Use the HorizontalAlignment and VerticalAlignment layout properties. They control how an element uses the space it has inside its parent when more room is available than it required by the element.

The width of a StackPanel, for example, will be as wide as the widest element it contains. So, all narrower elements have a bit of excess space. The alignment properties control what the child element does with the extra space.

The default value for both properties is Stretch, so the child element is stretched to fill all available space. Additional options include Left, Center and Right for HorizontalAlignment and Top, Center and Bottom for VerticalAlignment.