WPF UserControl Design Time Size

Question

When creating a UserControl in WPF, I find it convenient to give it some arbitrary Height and Width values so that I can view my changes in the Visual Studio designer. When

Answer 1

Here are a list of Design-Time Attributes in the Silverlight Designer. They are the same for the WPF designer.

It lists all of the d: values available in the Designer such as d:DesignHeight, d:DesignWidth, d:IsDesignTimeCreatable, d:CreateList and several others.

Answer 2

In Visual Studio add the Width and Height attribute to your UserControl XAML, but in the code-behind insert this

public UserControl1()
{
    InitializeComponent();
    if (LicenseManager.UsageMode != LicenseUsageMode.Designtime)
    {
        this.Width = double.NaN; ;
        this.Height = double.NaN; ;
    }
}

This checks to see if the control is running in Design-mode. If not (i.e. runtime) it will set the Width and Height to NaN (Not a number) which is the value you set it to if you remove the Width and Height attributes in XAML.

So at design-time you will have the preset width and height (including if you put the user control in a form) and at runtime it will dock depending on its parent container.

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

Thanks to the original answerer for this solution! For those that are interested, here it is in VB:

If LicenseManager.UsageMode <> LicenseUsageMode.Designtime Then
    Me.Width = Double.NaN
    Me.Height = Double.NaN
End If