Lesson 32 - WPF - Container Controls
In the previous lesson, WPF - Menu and Dialog Controls, we continued with our overview of WPF controls and showed how to use application menus and dialogs. Today's and the last tutorial on the basic WPF controls is dedicated to containers.
Containers
Containers are controls that contain other controls. We already know at least
the Grid
and StackPanel
. We use them to align controls
in the form according to the rules of the used container type.
Representatives of these containers in WPF are:
Canvas
DockPanel
Grid
StackPanel
TabControl
WrapPanel
Canvas
Canvas is the simplest container. Elements are placed in it using the
Left
, Top
, Right
, and Bottom
properties, as shown in the following example. The element position is then
specified by the distance from these edges. The underlying elements are stacked
in the order in which they are defined. We use Canvas
mainly for
drawing, e.g. some diagrams using geometric shapes or pictures.

Example
XAML
<Canvas Background="LightSteelBlue"> <Button Canvas.Left="10" Canvas.Top="10" Content="Top left"/> <Button Canvas.Right="10" Canvas.Top="10" Content="Top right"/> <Button Canvas.Left="10" Canvas.Bottom="10" Content="Bottom left"/> <Button Canvas.Right="10" Canvas.Bottom="10" Content="Bottom right"/> <Rectangle Fill="Lime" Canvas.Left="130" Canvas.Top="70" Width="50" Height="50"
...End of the preview...

Premium article
ict.social is a large database made up of manuals and tutorials, whose main goal is to provide high-quality IT education to everyone. We started out in the Czech republic, where we display roughly a million articles per month and receive plenty of gratitude from our users. Thanks to our successful establishment, we are now bringing these articles to the rest of the world.
Although we are trying to keep our content free of charge, maintaining the site is a huge effort for everyone involved. Therefore, some content (exercises and more advanced material) costs network points. Don't worry, they're really cheap :)
Article description
Requested article covers this content:
In this C# .NET WPF tutorial, we'll complete our control overview with containers. These are Canvas, DockPanel, Grid, StackPanel, TabControl, and WrapPanel
Buying this article gives you unlimited access to it forever. You will learn some more and help us keep giving our site maintenance which helps you and others get better futures. It's a win-win.
This article is licensed: Premium, by buying this article, you agree with the terms of use.
You gain points by supporting our network. This is done by sending a helpful amount of money to support the site, or by creating content for the network.
You can get points immediately using:
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Credit card | SMS | Wire transfer |