Question

I’m looking for opinion on using Canvas vs. Grid panels in WPF.
I need to make classic input forms that have basically grid layouts, some may have small datagrids inside, groupboxes, but all aligned in grid layout. I’m struggling whether to use Grid or Canvas panel for all my forms. Grid is giving me good structure; I can maintain alignment of controls more easily¬. I will have base class (that inherits Window class) for all windows, so designer in Visual Studio will be useless, since it has issues for this sort of inheriting, and with Grid panel I don’t really even need designer, and I can set window SizeToContent so everything will fit just fine. But again with Canvas, I have ability to position controls any way I like, and this is only benefit I see when using Canvas.

I didn’t have that much of experience in WPF to predict on what sorts of problems could I get from customer requests on layout. On web forms I sometimes use absolute positioning for forms just in case customer has some “special” request whether to have control pixel right or left on higher etc. everyone worked with demanding customers know what I mean.

I’d like to see what you think, what are pros and cons for both in business application form layout building? Why is one better than the other? Any cases where one panel would be bad to use, and other not? What are disadvantages of one panel to another? What panel would you use ?

Thanks

Answer 1

Canvas is mostly intended for custom drawing functionality more than anything else. The grid is definitely the best choice available for customizing your layout.