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How to: Set the Height Properties of an Element

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Example

This example visually shows the differences in rendering behavior among the four height-related properties in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

The FrameworkElement class exposes four properties that describe the height characteristics of an element. These four properties can conflict, and when they do, the value that takes precedence is determined as follows: the MinHeight value takes precedence over the MaxHeight value, which in turn takes precedence over the Height value. A fourth property, ActualHeight, is read-only, and reports the actual height as determined by interactions with the layout process.

The following Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) examples draw a Rectangle element (rect1) as a child of Canvas. You can change the height properties of a Rectangle by using a series of ListBox elements that represent the property values of MinHeight, MaxHeight, and Height. In this manner, the precedence of each property is visually displayed.

<Canvas Height="200" MinWidth="200" Background="#b0c4de" VerticalAlignment="Top"  HorizontalAlignment="Center" Name="myCanvas" Margin="0,0,0,50">
    <Rectangle HorizontalAlignment="Center" Canvas.Top="50" Canvas.Left="50"  Name="rect1" Fill="#4682b4" Height="100" Width="100"/>
</Canvas>

  <TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0" Margin="10,0,0,0" TextWrapping="Wrap">Set the Rectangle Height:</TextBlock>
  <ListBox Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="1" Margin="10,0,0,0" Height="50" Width="50" SelectionChanged="changeHeight">
    <ListBoxItem>25</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>50</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>75</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>100</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>125</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>150</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>175</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>200</ListBoxItem>
  </ListBox>

  <TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="2" Margin="10,0,0,0" TextWrapping="Wrap">Set the Rectangle MinHeight:</TextBlock>
  <ListBox Grid.Column="3" Grid.Row="1" Margin="10,0,0,0" Height="50" Width="50" SelectionChanged="changeMinHeight">
    <ListBoxItem>25</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>50</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>75</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>100</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>125</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>150</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>175</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>200</ListBoxItem>
</ListBox>      
   
  <TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="4" Margin="10,0,0,0" TextWrapping="Wrap">Set the Rectangle MaxHeight:</TextBlock>
  <ListBox Grid.Column="5" Grid.Row="1" Margin="10,0,0,0" Height="50" Width="50" SelectionChanged="changeMaxHeight">
    <ListBoxItem>25</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>50</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>75</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>100</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>125</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>150</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>175</ListBoxItem>
    <ListBoxItem>200</ListBoxItem> 
  </ListBox>

The following code-behind examples handle the events that the SelectionChanged event raises. Each handler takes the input from the ListBox, parses the value as a Double, and applies the value to the specified height-related property. The height values are also converted to a string and written to various TextBlock elements (definition of those elements is not shown in the selected XAML).

private void changeHeight(object sender, SelectionChangedEventArgs args)
{
    ListBoxItem li = ((sender as ListBox).SelectedItem as ListBoxItem);
    Double sz1 = Double.Parse(li.Content.ToString());
    rect1.Height = sz1;
    rect1.UpdateLayout();
    txt1.Text= "ActualHeight is set to " + rect1.ActualHeight;
    txt2.Text= "Height is set to " + rect1.Height;
    txt3.Text= "MinHeight is set to " + rect1.MinHeight;
    txt4.Text= "MaxHeight is set to " + rect1.MaxHeight;
}
private void changeMinHeight(object sender, SelectionChangedEventArgs args)
{
    ListBoxItem li = ((sender as ListBox).SelectedItem as ListBoxItem);
    Double sz1 = Double.Parse(li.Content.ToString());
    rect1.MinHeight = sz1;
    rect1.UpdateLayout();
    txt1.Text= "ActualHeight is set to " + rect1.ActualHeight;
    txt2.Text= "Height is set to " + rect1.Height;
    txt3.Text= "MinHeight is set to " + rect1.MinHeight;
    txt4.Text= "MaxHeight is set to " + rect1.MaxHeight;
}
private void changeMaxHeight(object sender, SelectionChangedEventArgs args)
{
    ListBoxItem li = ((sender as ListBox).SelectedItem as ListBoxItem);
    Double sz1 = Double.Parse(li.Content.ToString());
    rect1.MaxHeight = sz1;
    rect1.UpdateLayout();
    txt1.Text= "ActualHeight is set to " + rect1.ActualHeight;
    txt2.Text= "Height is set to " + rect1.Height;
    txt3.Text= "MinHeight is set to " + rect1.MinHeight;
    txt4.Text= "MaxHeight is set to " + rect1.MaxHeight;
}

Private Sub changeHeight(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal args As SelectionChangedEventArgs)
    Dim li As ListBoxItem = CType(CType(sender, ListBox).SelectedItem, ListBoxItem)
    Dim sz1 As Double = Double.Parse(li.Content.ToString())
    rect1.Height = sz1
    rect1.UpdateLayout()
    txt1.Text = "ActualHeight is set to " + rect1.ActualHeight.ToString
    txt2.Text = "Height is set to " + rect1.Height.ToString
    txt3.Text = "MinHeight is set to " + rect1.MinHeight.ToString
    txt4.Text = "MaxHeight is set to " + rect1.MaxHeight.ToString
End Sub
Private Sub changeMinHeight(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal args As SelectionChangedEventArgs)

    Dim li As ListBoxItem = CType(CType(sender, ListBox).SelectedItem, ListBoxItem)
    Dim sz1 As Double = Double.Parse(li.Content.ToString())
    rect1.MinHeight = sz1
    rect1.UpdateLayout()
    txt1.Text = "ActualHeight is set to " + rect1.ActualHeight.ToString
    txt2.Text = "Height is set to " + rect1.Height.ToString
    txt3.Text = "MinHeight is set to " + rect1.MinHeight.ToString
    txt4.Text = "MaxHeight is set to " + rect1.MaxHeight.ToString
End Sub
Private Sub changeMaxHeight(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal args As SelectionChangedEventArgs)

    Dim li As ListBoxItem = CType(CType(sender, ListBox).SelectedItem, ListBoxItem)
    Dim sz1 As Double = Double.Parse(li.Content.ToString())
    rect1.MaxHeight = sz1
    rect1.UpdateLayout()
    txt1.Text = "ActualHeight is set to " + rect1.ActualHeight.ToString
    txt2.Text = "Height is set to " + rect1.Height.ToString
    txt3.Text = "MinHeight is set to " + rect1.MinHeight.ToString
    txt4.Text = "MaxHeight is set to " + rect1.MaxHeight.ToString
End Sub

For the complete sample, see Height Properties Sample.

See also