How to draw a line without explicitly specifying its coordinates

[Pascal Bourque]

Hi,

I would like to draw horizontal dashed lines between elements in a
vertical StackPanel, letting the StackPanel layout the lines
appropriately (i.e. determine their width). I can easily draw a solid
line using a Rectangle shape like so:

<StackPanel>
<Button>Foo</Button>
<Rectangle Stroke="Red" StrokeThickness="2" />
<Button>Foo</Button>
<Rectangle Stroke="Red" StrokeThickness="2" />
<Button>Foo</Button>
</StackPanel>

But if I specify a StrokeDashArray to those "flat" rectangles, the dash
effect is't visible and the lines are still drawn solid:

<StackPanel>
<Button>toto</Button>
<Rectangle Stroke="Red" StrokeThickness="2" StrokeDashArray="2" />
<Button>toto</Button>
<Rectangle Stroke="Red" StrokeThickness="2" StrokeDashArray="2" />
<Button>toto</Button>
</StackPanel>

If I specify a height to those rectangles, I can see the StrokeDashArray
in action.

Ideally, I'd like to use a Line shape for this purpose, but the problem
is that Lines seem to require explicit start/end point coordinates
(X1,Y1 and X2,Y2) to draw anything. This prevents me from letting the
StackPanel determine their width automatically...

I feel this should be easy to achieve and that I am missing something
obvious, but I just can't figure out what...

Thanks!

Pascal

[viliescu]

You can try to create a custom control:
- it will contain just the line as a child
- override Measure/Arrange to position the line
--
Valentin Iliescu [MVP C#]

[Adam Smith [MS]]

Perhaps using the Path Element will work - it's a tad more complicated, but
it also has a few more features.

<Path Data="M0,0 1,0" Stroke="Red" StrokeThickness="2" Height="2"
Stretch="Fill"/>

In this case, the Path in a vacuum (or, say, in a Canvas) will just be a
line from 0,0 to 1,0. However, setting Stretch to Fill means that we will
stretch the underlying geometry (before applying the Stroke) to fill the
layout space reserved.

-Adam Smith [MS]

"viliescu" <vili...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:02EE361F-1889-4812...@microsoft.com...

[Pascal Bourque]

I did not try with the Path, but your suggestion led me to try this:

<Line X1="0"
Y1="0"
X2="1"
Y2="0"
Stroke="Red"
StrokeDashArray="2"
Stretch="Fill" />

And it works!

The key is to use 0,0-1,0 as coordinates for the Line, and specify
Stretch=Fill.

Thanks a lot!

Pascal

[Adam Smith [MS]]

Oh, yeah, that's even simpler - forgot that Line did that too.

Happy to help,
-Adam Smith [MS]

"Pascal Bourque" <bour...@xceedsoft.com> wrote in message
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