#387 – Set Background Color to See How Layout Works

It’s sometimes hard to understand how a container is laying out its children.  You can use the Background property of each control, or of the panels, to get a better idea of where things are.

Suppose that we have a GUI that includes a handful of controls and two nested panels.

    <StackPanel Orientation="Vertical">
        <Label Content="Bob's Your Uncle" HorizontalAlignment="Right"/>
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
            <Label Content="Paul"/>
            <Button Content="Ringo" Margin="10"/>
            <TextBox Text="George" VerticalContentAlignment="Bottom"/>
        </StackPanel>
        <TextBox Text="Herman was here.."/>
    </StackPanel>

The GUI would look like this:

To better see how things are being layed out, we can set the Background to a different color for each element.

    <StackPanel Orientation="Vertical" Background="Pink">

        <Label Content="Bob's Your Uncle" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Background="Lavender"/>

        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" Background="LightBlue">
            <Label Content="Paul" Background="Red"/>
            <Button Content="Ringo" Margin="10" Background="Green"/>
            <TextBox Text="George" VerticalContentAlignment="Bottom" Background="Blue"/>
        </StackPanel>

        <TextBox Text="Herman was here.." Background="Orange"/>
    </StackPanel>