New to WPF - What Control to Use / Getting Started?

Question

I\'m a WPF n0ob and I\'m struggling with selecting the appropriate control to get the layout I want.

What I\'m trying to do is draw a bunch of squares (virtual post-it n

Answer 1

1. ScrollViewer with an ItemsControl inside.
2. Bind the ItemsSource property of the ItemsControl to an ObservableCollection<PostIt> (where PostIt is a plain old CLR object with all the info that goes on the post it).
3. Add a DataTemplate to the ItemsTemplate property of the ItemsControl
4. Add controls to the DataTemplate and bind them directly to an instance of PostIt
5. Add PostIt instances to the ObservableCollection<PostIt> in your code.

The ScrollViewer handles all scrolling. That's all you need.

The ItemsControl is designed to bind against a collection. For each instance in the collection, it figures out what DataTemplate to use, creates a copy of the template, sets the root's DataContext to the instance it pulled from the collection, and adds the template to itself. It does this for each instance found in the collection.

In your codebehind, all you need to do is create a bunch of PostIts and add them to the collection. No godawful construction of UI elements like you're doing. Urgh.

If you can grasp this concept, you are a step away from understanding MVVM, the Model-View-Controller pattern in WPF. Read about it, try it out. Its a very simple way of making very complex applications with complex UI but with a minimum of code (and none of that crap you're doing currently).