WPF 4 Unleashed

Chapter 21. Layout with Custom Panels

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Communication Between Parents and Children

• Creating a SimpleCanvas

• Creating a SimpleStackPanel

• Creating an OverlapPanel

• Creating a FanCanvas

Chapter 5, “Layout with Panels,” examines the variety of panels included with WPF. If none of the built-in panels do exactly what you want, you have the option of writing your own panel. Of course, with all the flexibility of the built-in panels, the layout properties on child elements (discussed in Chapter 4, “Sizing, Positioning, and Transforming Elements”), plus the ability to embed panels within other panels to create arbitrarily complex layout, it’s unlikely that you’re going to need a custom panel. Actually, you never need a custom ...