WPF Layout with Grid

WPF layout system helps in having fine grained control over the placing of controls.

Since I am more into the web domain I am most comfortable with the Grid which is the most versatile of the built in layout panels available in WPF.
Grid mimics the familiar html Table tags.
Here I am creating a Grid with 3 rows.


















I am add two columns using ColumnDefinitions.

Now if a add a button to the Grid it will appear in the first row and column (zero based index). If I again add one more button to the grid the second button the take the precedence and hides the first button. It is possible to specify in which column the control should appear using Grid.Column and specifying the column number as sholwn in the figure below.














We can also specify the column number using Grid.Column.

 <Window x:Class="WPFLayout.MainWindow"  
     xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"  
     xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"  
     xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"  
     xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"  
     xmlns:local="clr-namespace:WPFLayout"  
     mc:Ignorable="d"  
     Title="Shalvin" Height="450" Width="800">  
   <Grid ShowGridLines="True">  
     <Grid.RowDefinitions>  
       <RowDefinition Height="50"/>  
       <RowDefinition Height="50"/>  
       <RowDefinition Height="50"/>  
     </Grid.RowDefinitions>  
      <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>  
        <ColumnDefinition Width="150"/>  
        <ColumnDefinition Width="150"/>  
        <ColumnDefinition Width="150"/>  
      </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>  
     <Button>Shalvin.com</Button>  
     <Button Grid.Column="1">shalvinpd.blogspot.com</Button>  
   </Grid>  
 </Window>  

Wpf and Windows Forms Controls Interop

Though WPF is a Wonderful technology, at times programmers get frustrated with the lack of certain controls. One such control is the DataGrid or GridView. Silverlight 2 infact has a DataGrid, hope in the next release of WPF it will be as feature rich as Windows Forms.

It is very much possible to use Windows Forms controls in WPF.

Start out by dragging a WindowsFormsHost into WPF Windows.


Create an object of System.Windows.Forms..DataGrid and set the Child Property of WindowsFormsHost to the newly created DataGrid object. WindowsFormsHost can have only one child as is obvious form the Child Property.

System.Windows.Forms.DataGrid dg = new System.Windows.Forms.DataGrid();
private void Window_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
windowsFormsHost1.Child = dg;
}

Now you can work with the DataGrid just like you work with it in Windows Forms.

Here is the complete code for connecting the DataGrid to a DataSet.

using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;

using System.Windows.Forms;

System.Windows.Forms.DataGrid dg = new System.Windows.Forms.DataGrid();

SqlConnection cnn;
SqlDataAdapter da;
DataSet ds = new DataSet();
private void Window_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
windowsFormsHost1.Child = dg;

cnn = new SqlConnection(@"Integrated Security=sspi;Initial Catalog=Shalvin;Data source=.\sqlexpress");
cnn.Open();
da = new SqlDataAdapter("select * from Categories", cnn);
da.Fill(ds, "Cat");
dg.DataSource = ds.Tables["Cat"];
}