How do I space out the child elements of a StackPanel?

user_65107 0
Viewed 184630

Given a StackPanel:

<StackPanel>
  <TextBox Height="30">Apple</TextBox>
  <TextBox Height="80">Banana</TextBox>
  <TextBox Height="120">Cherry</TextBox>
</StackPanel>

What's the best way to space out the child elements so that there are equally-sized gaps between them, even though the child elements themselves are of different sizes? Can it be done without setting properties on each of the individual children?

stackpanel silverlight xaml wpf
11 Answers

Use Margin or Padding, applied to the scope within the container:

<StackPanel>
    <StackPanel.Resources>
        <Style TargetType="{x:Type TextBox}">
            <Setter Property="Margin" Value="0,10,0,0"/>
        </Style>
    </StackPanel.Resources> 
    <TextBox Text="Apple"/>
    <TextBox Text="Banana"/>
    <TextBox Text="Cherry"/>
</StackPanel>

EDIT: In case you would want to re-use the margin between two containers, you can convert the margin value to a resource in an outer scope, f.e.

<Window.Resources>
    <Thickness x:Key="tbMargin">0,10,0,0</Thickness>
</Window.Resources>

and then refer to this value in the inner scope

<StackPanel.Resources>
    <Style TargetType="{x:Type TextBox}">
        <Setter Property="Margin" Value="{StaticResource tbMargin}"/>
    </Style>
</StackPanel.Resources>
user_584630
Jean_Azzopardi_539020

Usually, I use Grid instead of StackPanel like this:

horizontal case

<Grid>
 <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
    <ColumnDefinition Width="auto"/>
    <ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
    <ColumnDefinition  Width="auto"/>
    <ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
    <ColumnDefinition  Width="auto"/>
 </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
 <TextBox Height="30" Grid.Column="0">Apple</TextBox>
 <TextBox Height="80" Grid.Column="2">Banana</TextBox>
 <TextBox Height="120" Grid.Column="4">Cherry</TextBox>
</Grid>

vertical case

<Grid>
     <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
        <RowDefinition Width="auto"/>
        <RowDefinition Width="*"/>
        <RowDefinition  Width="auto"/>
        <RowDefinition Width="*"/>
        <RowDefinition  Width="auto"/>
     </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
     <TextBox Height="30" Grid.Row="0">Apple</TextBox>
     <TextBox Height="80" Grid.Row="2">Banana</TextBox>
     <TextBox Height="120" Grid.Row="4">Cherry</TextBox>
</Grid>
user_104983740

sometimes you need to set Padding, not Margin to make space between items smaller than default

user_21652800
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