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How to use ListBox in WPF and windows phone application Part 1?

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Introduction  

The XAML ListBox element represents a ListBox in WPF.

The ListBox tag represents a ListBox control in XAML.

  1. <ListBox></ListBox>  

The Width and Height properties represent the width and the height of a ListBox. The Name property represents the name of the control that is a unique identifier of a control. The Margin property tells the location of a ListBox on the parent control. The HorizontalAlignment and VerticalAlignment properties are used to set horizontal and vertical alignments. 

The following code snippet sets the name, height and width of a ListBox control. The code also sets the horizontal alignment to left and the vertical alignment to top. 

<ListBox Margin="10,10,0,13" Name="listBox1" HorizontalAlignment="Left"  VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="194" Height="200" />  

Adding ListBox Items

ListBox control hosts a collection of ListBoxItems. The following code snippet adds items to a ListBoxcontrol. 

<ListBox Margin="10,10,0,13" Name="listBox1" HorizontalAlignment="Left"   
         VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="194" Height="200">  
    <ListBoxItem Content="Coffie"></ListBoxItem>  
    <ListBoxItem Content="Tea"></ListBoxItem>  
    <ListBoxItem Content="Orange Juice"></ListBoxItem>  
    <ListBoxItem Content="Milk"></ListBoxItem>  
    <ListBoxItem Content="Iced Tea"></ListBoxItem>  
    <ListBoxItem Content="Mango Shake"></ListBoxItem>  
</ListBox>   

The preceding code generates Figure 1. 

ListBox with items
                                          Figure 1. ListBox with items 

Adding ListBox Items Dynamically

In the previous section, we saw how to add items to a ListBox at design-time from XAML. We can add items to a ListBox from the code. 

Let's change our UI and add a TextBox and a button control to the page. The XAML code for the TextBoxand Button controls look like following:

<TextBox Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="8,14,0,0"   
                 Name="textBox1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="127" />  
<Button Height="23" Margin="140,14,0,0" Name="button1" VerticalAlignment="Top"   
                HorizontalAlignment="Left" Width="76" Click="button1_Click">  
            Add Item  
</Button> 

The final UI looks as in Figure 2. 

UI looks
                                                          Figure 2.

On a button click event handler, we add the content of the TextBox to the ListBox by calling theListBox.Items.Add method. The following code adds TextBox contents to the ListBox items. 

private void button1_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)  
{  
   listBox1.Items.Add(textBox1.Text);  
}  

In the button click event handler, we add the contents of the TextBox to the ListBox by calling theListBox.Items.Add method. 

Now if you enter text into the TextBox and click the Add Item button, it will add the contents of the TextBoxto the ListBox

Adding ListBox items
                              Figure 3. Adding ListBox items dynamically

Deleting ListBox Items 

We can use the ListBox.Items.Remove or ListBox.Items.RemoveAt method to delete an item from the collection of items in the ListBox. The RemoveAt method takes the index of the item in the collection. 

Now, we modify our application and add a new button called Delete Item. The XAML code for this button looks as in the following.

<Button Height="23" Margin="226,14,124,0" Name="DeleteButton"   
  VerticalAlignment="Top" Click="DeleteButton_Click">  
  Delete Item

</Button>   

The button click event handler looks as in following. On this button click, we find the index of the selected item and call the ListBox.Items.RemoveAt method as in the following. 

private void DeleteButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)  
{  
   listBox1.Items.RemoveAt  
  (listBox1.Items.IndexOf(listBox1.SelectedItem));                    
}

posted Sep 8, 2015 by Jdk

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Data Binding with Controls

The last data binding type we will see is how to provide a data exchange between a ListBox and other controls using data binding in WPF.

We will create an application that looks as in Figure 12. In Figure 12, I have a ListBox with a list of colors, a TextBox and a Canvas. When we pick a color from the ListBox, the text of TextBox and color of Canvas changes dynamically to the color selected in the ListBox and this is possible to do all inXAML without writing a single line of code in the code behind file.

looks like Figure
                                                Figure 12.

The XAML code of the page looks as in following.

​       <StackPanel Orientation="Vertical">  
    <TextBlock Margin="10,10,10,10" FontWeight="Bold">  
        Pick a color from below list  
    </TextBlock>  
    <ListBox Name="mcListBox" Height="100" Width="100"  
             Margin="10,10,0,0" HorizontalAlignment="Left" >  
        <ListBoxItem>Orange</ListBoxItem>  
        <ListBoxItem>Green</ListBoxItem>  
        <ListBoxItem>Blue</ListBoxItem>  
        <ListBoxItem>Gray</ListBoxItem>  
        <ListBoxItem>LightGray</ListBoxItem>  
        <ListBoxItem>Red</ListBoxItem>  
    </ListBox>   
   <TextBox Height="23" Name="textBox1" Width="120" Margin="10,10,0,0" HorizontalAlignment="Left"  >  
        <TextBox.Text>  
            <Binding ElementName="mcListBox" Path="SelectedItem.Content"/>  
        </TextBox.Text>  
    </TextBox>  
    <Canvas Margin="10,10,0,0" Height="200" Width="200" HorizontalAlignment="Left" >  
        <Canvas.Background>  
            <Binding ElementName="mcListBox" Path="SelectedItem.Content"/>  
        </Canvas.Background>  
    </Canvas>  
</StackPanel>        

If you look at the TextBox XAML code, you will see the Binding within the TextBox.Text property that sets the binding from TextBox to another control and another control ID is ElementName and another control's property is Path. So in the following code, we are setting the SelectedItem.Content property ofListBox to the TextBox.Text property. 

 <TextBox.Text>  

   <Binding ElementName="mcListBox" Path="SelectedItem.Content"/>  
</TextBox.Text>  

Now the same applies to the Canvas.Background property, where we set it to theSelectedItem.Content of the ListBox. Now, every time you select an item in the ListBox, theTextBox.Text and Canvas.Background properties are set to that selected item in the ListBox.


<Canvas.Background>  
   <Binding ElementName="mcListBox" Path="SelectedItem.Content"/>  
</Canvas.Background> 

Summary

In this article, I explained how to create and use a ListBox control available in WPF and WP8. We saw how to add items to a ListBox, change item properties and add images add check boxes. In the end of this article, we saw how data binding works in ListBox and how to bind a ListBox with data coming from objects, databases and other controls. 

READ MORE

Now we add a ListBox control and set its ItemsSource property as the first DataTable of the DataSetand set ItemTemplate to the resource defined above. 

<ListBox Margin="17,8,15,26" Name="listBox1" ItemsSource="{Binding Tables[0]}"  ItemTemplate="{StaticResource listBoxTemplate}" />  

Now in our code behind, we define the following variables. 

public SqlConnection connection;  

public SqlCommand command;  

string sql = "SELECT ContactName, Address, City, Country FROM Customers"

string connectionString = @"Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|\NORTHWND.MDF;Integrated Security=True;Connect Timeout=30;User Instance=True"

Now on the Windows_Loaded method, we call the BindData method and in the BindData method, we create a connection, data adapter and fill in the DataSet using the SqlDataAdapter.Fill() method.

private void Window_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)  
{  
    BindData();             
}  
  
private void BindData()  
{  
    DataSet dtSet = new DataSet();  
    using (connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString))  
    {  
        command = new SqlCommand(sql, connection);                 
        SqlDataAdapter adapter = new SqlDataAdapter();             
        connection.Open();  
        adapter.SelectCommand = command;  
        adapter.Fill(dtSet, "Customers");  
        listBox1.DataContext = dtSet;  
    }  
}  

Data Binding with XML 

Now let's look at how to bind XML data to a ListBox control. The XmlDataProvider is used to bind XMLdata in WPF

Here is an XmlDataProvider defined in XAML that contains books data. The XML data is defined within the x:Data tag. 

       

<XmlDataProvider x:Key="BooksData" XPath="Inventory/Books">  
    <x:XData>  
        <Inventory xmlns="">  
            <Books>  
                <Book Category="Programming" >  
                    <Title>A Programmer's Guide to ADO.NET</Title>  
                    <Summary>Learn how to write database applications using ADO.NET and C#.  
                    </Summary>  
                    <Author>Mahesh Chand</Author>  
                    <Publisher>APress</Publisher>  
                </Book>  
                <Book Category="Programming" >  
                    <Title>Graphics Programming with GDI+</Title>  
                    <Summary>Learn how to write graphics applications using GDI+ and C#.  
                    </Summary>  
                    <Author>Mahesh Chand</Author>  
                    <Publisher>Addison Wesley</Publisher>  
                </Book>  
                <Book Category="Programming" >  
                    <Title>Visual C#</Title>  
                    <Summary>Learn how to write C# applications.  
                    </Summary>  
                    <Author>Mike Gold</Author>  
                    <Publisher>APress</Publisher>  
                </Book>  
                <Book Category="Programming" >  
                    <Title>Introducing Microsoft .NET</Title>  
                    <Summary>Programming .NET  
                    </Summary>  
                    <Author>Mathew Cochran</Author>  
                    <Publisher>APress</Publisher>  
                </Book>  
                <Book Category="Database" >  
                    <Title>DBA Express</Title>  
                    <Summary>DBA's Handbook  
                    </Summary>  
                    <Author>Mahesh Chand</Author>  
                    <Publisher>Microsoft</Publisher>  
                </Book>  
            </Books>  
        </Inventory>  
    </x:XData>  
</XmlDataProvider>  

To bind an XmlDataProvider, we set the Source property inside the ItemsSource of a ListBox to thex:Key of XmlDataProvider and XPath is used to filter the data. In the ListBox.ItemTempate, we use the Binding property. 

<ListBox Width="400" Height="300" Background="LightGray">  
    <ListBox.ItemsSource>  
        <Binding Source="{StaticResource BooksData}"  
       XPath="*[@Category='Programming'] "/>  
    </ListBox.ItemsSource>  
  
    <ListBox.ItemTemplate>  
        <DataTemplate>  
            <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">  
                <TextBlock Text="Title: " FontWeight="Bold"/>  
                <TextBlock Foreground="Green"  >  
                    <TextBlock.Text>   
                        <Binding XPath="Title"/>  
                    </TextBlock.Text>                        
                </TextBlock>                       
           </StackPanel>  
        </DataTemplate>  
    </ListBox.ItemTemplate>  
</ListBox>  

The output of the preceding code looks as in Figure 11.

code behind file

 

READ MORE

The following XAML code generates two ListBox control and two Button controls.

<ListBox Margin="11,13,355,11" Name="LeftListBox" />  
<ListBox Margin="0,13,21,11" Name="RightListBox" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Width="216" />  
<Button Name="AddButton" Height="23" Margin="248,78,261,0" VerticalAlignment="Top"  
        Click="AddButton_Click">Add >></Button>  
<Button Name="RemoveButton" Margin="248,121,261,117"   
        Click="RemoveButton_Click"><< Remove</Button>  

On the Window loaded event, we create and load data items to the ListBox by setting the ItemsSourceproperty to an ArrayList

private void Window_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)  
{  
    // Get data from somewhere and fill in my local ArrayList  
    myDataList = LoadListBoxData();  
    // Bind ArrayList with the ListBox  
    LeftListBox.ItemsSource = myDataList;              
}  
  
/// <summary>  
/// Generate data. This method can bring data from a database or XML file  
/// or from a Web service or generate data dynamically  
/// </summary>  
/// <returns></returns>  
private ArrayList LoadListBoxData()  
{  
    ArrayList itemsList = new ArrayList();  
    itemsList.Add("Coffie");  
    itemsList.Add("Tea");  
    itemsList.Add("Orange Juice");  
    itemsList.Add("Milk");  
    itemsList.Add("Mango Shake");  
    itemsList.Add("Iced Tea");  
    itemsList.Add("Soda");  
    itemsList.Add("Water");  
    return itemsList;  
}  

On the Add button click event handler, we get the value and index of the selected item in the left sideListBox and add that to the right side ListBox and remove that item from the ArrayList that is our data source. The ApplyBinding method simply removes the current binding of the ListBox and rebinds with the updated ArrayList.

private void AddButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)  
{  
    // Find the right item and it's value and index  
    currentItemText = LeftListBox.SelectedValue.ToString();  
    currentItemIndex = LeftListBox.SelectedIndex;  
      
    RightListBox.Items.Add(currentItemText);  
    if (myDataList != null)  
    {  
        myDataList.RemoveAt(currentItemIndex);  
    }  
  
    // Refresh data binding  
    ApplyDataBinding();  
}
/// <summary>  
/// Refreshes data binding  
/// </summary>  
private void ApplyDataBinding()  
{  
    LeftListBox.ItemsSource = null;  
    // Bind ArrayList with the ListBox  
    LeftListBox.ItemsSource = myDataList;  
}  

Similarly, on the Remove button click event handler, we get the selected item text and index from the right side ListBox and add that to the ArrayList and remove from the right side ListBox.

private void RemoveButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)  
{  
    // Find the right item and it's value and index  
    currentItemText = RightListBox.SelectedValue.ToString();  
    currentItemIndex = RightListBox.SelectedIndex;  
    // Add RightListBox item to the ArrayList  
    myDataList.Add(currentItemText);  
  
  RightListBox.Items.RemoveAt(RightListBox.Items.IndexOf(RightListBox.SelectedItem));  
  
    // Refresh data binding  
    ApplyDataBinding();  
}  

Data Binding with a Database

We use the Northwind.mdf database that is provided with SQL Server. In our application, we will read data from the Customers table. The Customers table columns looks as in Figure 9. 

Data Binding
                                          Figure 9 

We will read ContactName, Address, City and Country columns in a WPF ListBox control. The finalListBox looks as in Figure 10. 

ContactName
                                                            Figure 10

Now let's look at our XAML file. We create a resources DataTemplate type called listBoxTemplate. A data template is used to represent data in a formatted way. The data template has two dock panels where the first panel shows the name and the second panel shows address, city and country columns using TextBlock controls. 

<Window.Resources>  
    <DataTemplate x:Key="listBoxTemplate">  
        <StackPanel Margin="3">  
            <DockPanel >  
                <TextBlock FontWeight="Bold" Text="Name:"  
                  DockPanel.Dock="Left"  
                  Margin="5,0,10,0"/>  
                <TextBlock Text="  " />  
                <TextBlock Text="{Binding ContactName}" Foreground="Green" FontWeight="Bold" />  
            </DockPanel>  
            <DockPanel >  
                <TextBlock FontWeight="Bold" Text="Address:" Foreground ="DarkOrange"   
                  DockPanel.Dock="Left"  
                  Margin="5,0,5,0"/>  
                <TextBlock Text="{Binding Address}" />  
                 <TextBlock Text=", " />  
                <TextBlock Text="{Binding City}" />  
                 <TextBlock Text=", " />  
                <TextBlock Text="{Binding Country}" />  
            </DockPanel>  
        </StackPanel>  
    </DataTemplate>  
</Window.Resources>    

 

READ MORE

   PART 2: Continuous 

 <ListBoxItem Background="LightCoral" Foreground="Red"   
             FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="12" FontWeight="Bold">                  
        <CheckBox Name="CoffieCheckBox">  
            <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">  
            <Image Source="coffie.jpg" Height="30"></Image>  
            <TextBlock Text="Coffie"></TextBlock>  
        </StackPanel>  
    </CheckBox>  
</ListBoxItem>  
<ListBoxItem Background="LightGray" Foreground="Black"   
             FontFamily="Georgia" FontSize="14" FontWeight="Bold">  
    <CheckBox Name="TeaCheckBox">  
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">  
            <Image Source="tea.jpg" Height="30"></Image>  
            <TextBlock Text="Tea"></TextBlock>  
        </StackPanel>  
    </CheckBox>  
</ListBoxItem>  
<ListBoxItem Background="LightBlue" Foreground="Purple"   
             FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="12" FontWeight="Bold">  
    <CheckBox Name="OrangeJuiceCheckBox">  
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">  
            <Image Source="OrangeJuice.jpg" Height="40"></Image>  
            <TextBlock Text="OrangeJuice"></TextBlock>  
        </StackPanel>  
    </CheckBox>  
</ListBoxItem>  
<ListBoxItem Background="LightGreen" Foreground="Green"   
             FontFamily="Georgia" FontSize="14" FontWeight="Bold">  
    <CheckBox Name="MilkCheckBox">  
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">  
            <Image Source="Milk.jpg" Height="30"></Image>  
            <TextBlock Text="Milk"></TextBlock>  
        </StackPanel>  
    </CheckBox>  
</ListBoxItem>  
<ListBoxItem Background="LightBlue" Foreground="Blue"   
             FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="12" FontWeight="Bold">  
    <CheckBox Name="IcedTeaCheckBox">  
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">  
            <Image Source="IcedTea.jpg" Height="30"></Image>  
            <TextBlock Text="Iced Tea"></TextBlock>  
        </StackPanel>  
    </CheckBox>  
</ListBoxItem>  
<ListBoxItem Background="LightSlateGray" Foreground="Orange"  
             FontFamily="Georgia" FontSize="14" FontWeight="Bold">  
    <CheckBox Name="MangoShakeCheckBox">  
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">  
            <Image Source="MangoShake.jpg" Height="30"></Image>  
            <TextBlock Text="Mango Shake"></TextBlock>  
        </StackPanel>  
    </CheckBox>  
</ListBoxItem>  

Now, the new ListBox looks as in Figure 6.

ListBox with CheckBoxes
                                 Figure 6. ListBox with CheckBoxes

Data Binding 

Before I discuss data binding in general, I must confess, Microsoft experts have made a big mess related to data-binding in .NET 3.0 and 3.5. Instead of making things simpler, they have made them complicated. Maybe they have some bigger plans for the future but so far I have seen binding using dependency objects and properties, LINQ and DLINQ and WCF and ASP.NET Web Services and it all looks like a big mess. It's not even close to the ADO.NET model we had in .NET 1.0 and 2.0. I hope they clean up this mess in the near future.

When it comes to data binding, we need to first understand the data. Here is a list of ways a data can be consumed from:

  • Objects
  • A relational database such as SQL Server
  • A XML file
  • Other controls

Data Binding with Objects

The ItemsSource property of a ListBox binds a collection of IEnuemerable items such as an ArrayList to the ListBox control. 

// Bind ArrayList with the ListBox  
LeftListBox.ItemsSource = LoadListBoxData();  

private ArrayList LoadListBoxData()  
{  
    ArrayList itemsList = new ArrayList();  
    itemsList.Add("Coffie");  
    itemsList.Add("Tea");  
    itemsList.Add("Orange Juice");  
    itemsList.Add("Milk");  
    itemsList.Add("Mango Shake");  
    itemsList.Add("Iced Tea");  
    itemsList.Add("Soda");  
    itemsList.Add("Water");  
    return itemsList;  
}  

Sample: Transferring data from one ListBox to Another 


We've seen many requirements where a page has two ListBox controls and the left ListBox displays a list of items and using a button we can add items from the left ListBox and add them to the right side ListBoxand using the remove button we can remove items from the right side ListBox and add them back to the left side ListBox

This sample shows how to move items from one ListBox to another. The final page looks as in Figure 7. The Add button adds the selected item to the right side ListBox and removes from the left side ListBox. The Remove button removes the selected item from the right side ListBox and adds back to the left sideListBox.

ListBox
                                                                           Figure 7

add remove
                                                                           Figure 8

 

PART 4: will update soon

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Formatting and Styling 

Formatting ListBox Items


The Foreground and Background attributes of ListBoxItem represents the background and foreground colors of the item. The following code snippet sets the background and foreground colors of aListBoxItem.

<ListBoxItem Background="LightCoral" Foreground="Red" Content="Coffie"></ListBoxItem>  

The FontFamilyFontSize and FontWeight are used to set a font of a ListBoxItem. The following code snippet sets the font to verdana, the size to 12 and bold of a ListBoxItem

<ListBoxItem Background="LightCoral" Foreground="Red" Content="Coffie" FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="12" FontWeight="Bold"></ListBoxItem>  

I set the following properties of ListBoxItems.

<ListBoxItem Background="LightCoral" Foreground="Red" Content="Coffie"  
                         FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="12" FontWeight="Bold"></ListBoxItem>  
            <ListBoxItem Background="LightGray" Foreground="Black" Content="Tea"  
                         FontFamily="Georgia" FontSize="14" FontWeight="Bold"></ListBoxItem>  
            <ListBoxItem Background="LightBlue" Foreground="Purple" Content="Orange Juice"  
                         FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="12" FontWeight="Bold"></ListBoxItem>  
            <ListBoxItem Background="LightGreen" Foreground="Green" Content="Milk"  
                         FontFamily="Georgia" FontSize="14" FontWeight="Bold"></ListBoxItem>  
            <ListBoxItem Background="LightBlue" Foreground="Blue" Content="Iced Tea"  
                         FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="12" FontWeight="Bold"></ListBoxItem>  
            <ListBoxItem Background="LightSlateGray" Foreground="Orange" Content="Mango Shake"  
                         FontFamily="Georgia" FontSize="14" FontWeight="Bold"></ListBoxItem>  

The new ListBox looks as in Figure 4. 

Formatted ListBox
                                       Figure 4. Formatted ListBox 

Displaying Images in a ListBox 

We can put any controls inside a ListBoxItem such as an image and text. To display an image beside some text, I simply put an Image and TextBlock control within a StackPanel. The Image.Source property takes the name of the image you would like to display in the Image control and the TextBlock.Text property takes a string that you would like to display in the TextBlock.

The following code snippet adds an image and text to a ListBoxItem

<ListBoxItem Background="LightCoral" Foreground="Red"   
             FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="12" FontWeight="Bold">  
    <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">  
        <Image Source="coffie.jpg" Height="30"></Image>  
        <TextBlock Text="Coffie"></TextBlock>  
    </StackPanel>  
</ListBoxItem> 

After changing my code for all 5 ListBoxItems, the ListBox looks as in Figure 5. 


ListBoxItems with Image
                           Figure 5. ListBoxItems with Image and text

ListBox with CheckBoxes

If you put a CheckBox control inside ListBoxItems, you generate a ListBox control with checkboxes in it. The CheckBox can host controls within it as well. For instance, we can put an image and text block as the content of a CheckBox.

The following code snippet adds a CheckBox with an image and text to a ListBoxItem.

<ListBoxItem Background="LightCoral" Foreground="Red"   
             FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="12" FontWeight="Bold">                  
        <CheckBox Name="CoffieCheckBox">  
            <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">  
            <Image Source="coffie.jpg" Height="30"></Image>  
            <TextBlock Text="Coffie"></TextBlock>  
        </StackPanel>  
    </CheckBox>  
</ListBoxItem> 

I change the code of ListBoxItems and add the following CheckBoxes to the items. As you may see, I have set the name of the CheckBoxes using the Name property. If you need to access these CheckBoxes, you may access them in the code using their Name property. 

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The XAML TextBlock element represents a text block. The TextBlock control provides a lightweight control for displaying small amounts of flow content. This article shows how to use a TextBlock control in WPF.

Creating a TextBlock

The TextBlock element represents a WPF TextBlock control in XAML. 

  1. <TextBlock/>  

The Width and Height attributes of the TextBlock element represent the width and the height of aTextBlock. The Text property of the TextBlock element represents the content of a TextBlock. The Name attribute represents the name of the control that is a unique identifier of a control. The Foreground property sets the foreground color of contents. This control does not have a Background property. 

The code snippet in Listing 1 creates a TextBlock control and sets the name, height, width, foreground and content of a TextBlock control. Unlike a TextBox control, the TextBlock does not have a default border around it.

<TextBlock Name="TextBlock1" Height="30" Width="200"   

    Text="Hello! I am a TextBlock." Foreground="Red">  

</TextBlock>  

Listing 1

The output looks as in Figure 1

                                          output
                                                      Figure 1

As you can see from Figure 1, by default the TextBlock is placed in the center of the page. We can place aTextBlock control where we want using the MarginVerticalAlignment and HorizontalAlignment attributes that sets the margin, vertical alignment and horizontal alignment of a control. 

The code snippet in Listing 2 sets the position of the TextBlock control in the left top corner of the page. 

<TextBlock Name="TextBlock1" Height="30" Width="200"   
        Text="Hello! I am a TextBlock."   
        Margin="10,10,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top"   
        HorizontalAlignment="Left">              
</TextBlock>  ​

                                                      Listing 2

Creating a TextBlock Dynamically

The code listed in Listing 3 creates a TextBlock control programmatically. First, it creates a TextBlockobject and sets its width, height, contents and foreground and later the TextBlock is added to theLayoutRoot

private void CreateATextBlock()  
{  
    TextBlock txtBlock = new TextBlock();  
    txtBlock.Height = 50;  
    txtBlock.Width = 200;  
    txtBlock.Text = "Text Box content";  
    txtBlock.Foreground = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Red);  
  
    LayoutRoot.Children.Add(txtBlock);  
} ​

                                                      Listing 3

Setting Fonts of TextBlock Contents

The FontSizeFontFamilyFontWeightFontStyle and FontStretch properties are used to set the font size, family, weight, style and stretch to the text of a TextBlock. The code snippet in Listing 4 sets the font properties of a TextBlock

  1. FontSize="14" FontFamily="Verdana" FontWeight="Bold"  

                                                      Listing 4

The new output looks as in Figure 4.

                                    hello

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Tab Control has tab items and each tab item represents a container that is used to host other controls. A typical example of a Tab control is the Visual Studio designer as shown in Figure 1. If you click on theWindow1.xaml tab item, you will see XAML code but if you click on Window1.xaml.cs, you will see C# code behind. 


Figure 1

Create a Tab Control


The TabControl element in XAML represents a Tab Control. 

  1. <TabControl />  

The code snippet in Listing 1 creates a Tab Control and sets it height, width, margin and alignment. The code also adds a TabItem

  1. <TabControl Height="238" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="12,12,0,0"   
  2.             Name="tabControl1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="445">  
  3.     <TabItem Header="tabItem1" Name="tabItem1">  
  4.     </TabItem>  
  5. </TabControl>  

Listing 1

The output of Listing 1 looks as in Figure 2.


Figure 2

Adding Tab Items

Tab Control is nothing without a Tab Item. The <TabItem \> element in XAML represents a Tab Item. The Header property of a TabItem represents the header text of the header. The following code creates aTabItem with the header text “Circle”.

          <TabItem Header="Circle">   

             </TabItem>  

A tab item can host other XAML controls similar to a panel or grid control. For example, the following code adds a StackPanel to the tab item and on that StackPanel, it creates a circle with height and width 100. 

 
<TabItem  Header="Circle">  
   <StackPanel>  
<Ellipse Height="100" Width="100" StrokeThickness="5" Stroke="black"  
      Fill="gold"/>  
   </StackPanel>  
</TabItem > 

Using the same preceding approach, I add three tab items to the tab control (Listing 2) called Circle, Rectangle and Polygon. 

<TabControl Height="150" FontFamily="Verdana" FontSize="12" >  
            <TabControl.Background>  
                <SolidColorBrush Color="Green" Opacity="0.30"/>  
            </TabControl.Background>  
            <TabItem  Header="Circle">  
                <StackPanel>  
                    <Ellipse Height="100" Width="100" StrokeThickness="5" Stroke="black"  
      Fill="gold"/>  
                </StackPanel>  
            </TabItem >  
            <TabItem  Header="Rectangle">  
                <StackPanel>  
                    <Rectangle Fill="Yellow" Width="100" Height="100" Stroke="Blue" StrokeThickness="5">  
                    </Rectangle>  
                </StackPanel>  
            </TabItem >  
            <TabItem  Header="Polygon">  
                <StackPanel>  
                    <Polygon Points="100,50 50,100 150,100 100,50 100,30"  
       Stroke="green" StrokeThickness="3" Fill="Yellow"/>  
                </StackPanel>  
            </TabItem >  
</TabControl>  

Listing 2


Part 2: http://tech.queryhome.com/94066/how-to-use-tabcontrol-wpf-and-windows-phone-application-part

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