How to get controls in WPF to fill available space?

Question

Some WPF controls (like the Button) seem to happily consume all the available space in its\' container if you don\'t specify the height it is to have.

A

Answer 1

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.