Nested Scroll Areas

Question

I creating a control for WPF, and I have a question for you WPF gurus out there.

I want my control to be able to expand to fit a resizable window.

In my con

Answer 1

I ended up combining Daniels answer and Heiner's answer. I decided to post the entire solution to make it easier for people to adopt this if needed. Here's my decorator class:

public class RestrictDesiredSizeDecorator : Decorator
{
    public static readonly DependencyProperty KeepWidth;
    public static readonly DependencyProperty KeepHeight;

    #region Dependency property setters and getters
    public static void SetKeepWidth(UIElement element, bool value)
    {
        element.SetValue(KeepWidth, value);
    }

    public static bool GetKeepWidth(UIElement element)
    {
        return (bool)element.GetValue(KeepWidth);
    }

    public static void SetKeepHeight(UIElement element, bool value)
    {
        element.SetValue(KeepHeight, value);
    }

    public static bool GetKeepHeight(UIElement element)
    {
        return (bool)element.GetValue(KeepHeight);
    }
    #endregion

    private Size _lastArrangeSize = new Size(double.PositiveInfinity, double.PositiveInfinity);

    static RestrictDesiredSizeDecorator()
    {
        KeepWidth = DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached(
            nameof(KeepWidth),
            typeof(bool),
            typeof(RestrictDesiredSizeDecorator));

        KeepHeight = DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached(
            nameof(KeepHeight),
            typeof(bool),
            typeof(RestrictDesiredSizeDecorator));
    }

    protected override Size MeasureOverride(Size constraint)
    {
        Debug.WriteLine("Measure: " + constraint);

        var keepWidth = GetValue(KeepWidth) as bool? ?? false;
        var keepHeight = GetValue(KeepHeight) as bool? ?? false;

        var innerWidth = keepWidth ? constraint.Width : Math.Min(this._lastArrangeSize.Width, constraint.Width);
        var innerHeight = keepHeight ? constraint.Height : Math.Min(this._lastArrangeSize.Height, constraint.Height);
        base.MeasureOverride(new Size(innerWidth, innerHeight));

        var outerWidth = keepWidth ? Child.DesiredSize.Width : 0;
        var outerHeight = keepHeight ? Child.DesiredSize.Height : 0;

        return new Size(outerWidth, outerHeight);
    }

    protected override Size ArrangeOverride(Size arrangeSize)
    {
        Debug.WriteLine("Arrange: " + arrangeSize);

        if (_lastArrangeSize != arrangeSize)
        {
            _lastArrangeSize = arrangeSize;
            base.MeasureOverride(arrangeSize);
        }

        return base.ArrangeOverride(arrangeSize);
    }
}

and here's how I use it in the xaml:

<ScrollViewer>
    <StackPanel Orientation="Vertical">
        <Whatever />

        <decorators:RestrictDesiredSizeDecorator MinWidth="100" KeepHeight="True">
            <TextBox
                Text="{Binding Comment, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}"
                Height="Auto"
                MaxHeight="360"
                VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto"
                HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Auto"
                AcceptsReturn="True"
                AcceptsTab="True"
                TextWrapping="WrapWithOverflow"
                />
        </decorators:RestrictDesiredSizeDecorator>

        <Whatever />
    </StackPanel>
</ScrollViewer

The above creates a textbox that will grow vertically (until it hits MaxHeight) but will match the parent's width without growing the outer ScrollViewer. Resizing the window/ScrollViewer to less than 100 wide will force the outer ScrollViewer to show the horizontal scroll bars. Other controls with inner ScrollViewers can be used as well, including complex grids.