SharedSizeGroup: Managing Column Size across Grids

SharedSizeGroup is an underused WPF attribute, but one that can make life lot more easier when design WPF forms with multiple Grids that need to share a column size. Consider the screenshot below. The three pairs of Label and Textbox are in separate grids (with column width set to auto), resulting in an unorganized layout. It would far more better if the column width of first grid resizes itself to width of column in second grid.

You might often have to design more complex scenarios where you would love to retain the column size across Grids. This is where SharedSizeGroup comes into play. Let’s redefine our XAML with the attribute.

<Grid Margin="10,10,10,10">
        <StackPanel Grid.IsSharedSizeScope="True">
            <Grid>
                <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                    <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" SharedSizeGroup="ABC"/>
                    <ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
                </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                <TextBlock Text="Name"></TextBlock>
                <TextBox Grid.Column="1"/>
            </Grid>
            <Grid>
                <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                    <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" SharedSizeGroup="ABC"/>
                    <ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
                </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                <TextBlock Text="Full Name"></TextBlock>
                <TextBox Grid.Column="1"/>
            </Grid>
            <Grid>
                <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                    <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" SharedSizeGroup="ABC"/>
                    <ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
                </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                <TextBlock Text="Last Name"></TextBlock>
                <TextBox Grid.Column="1"/>
            </Grid>
        </StackPanel>
    </Grid>

 
Now the layout looks better organized.