Windows 8’s GridView – Not meant for data entry!

Here’s an interesting experiment. Slap this in to a blank Windows Store app’s MainPage.xaml:

<Grid>
	<Grid.RowDefinitions>
		<RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
	</Grid.RowDefinitions>
	<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
		<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" />
		<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" />
	</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>

	<GridView Grid.Column="0">
		<TextBox />
		<TextBox />
		<TextBox />
		<TextBox />
		<TextBox />
		<TextBox />
		<TextBox />
		<TextBox />
		<TextBox />
		<TextBox />
		<TextBox />
		<TextBox />
		<TextBox />
		<TextBox />
	</GridView>

	<StackPanel Orientation="Vertical"
                        Grid.Column="1">
		<TextBox Margin="10" />
		<TextBox Margin="10" />
		<TextBox Margin="10" />
		<TextBox Margin="10" />
		<TextBox Margin="10" />
		<TextBox Margin="10" />
		<TextBox Margin="10" />
		<TextBox Margin="10" />
		<TextBox Margin="10" />
		<TextBox Margin="10" />
		<TextBox Margin="10" />
		<TextBox Margin="10" />
		<TextBox Margin="10" />
		<TextBox Margin="10" />
	</StackPanel>
</Grid>

Now run it in the simulator and flip to Touch-mode.

Click the bottom-most textbox in the first column.

See what happens?

You can’t see the textbox you’re typing in to! The OS doesn’t handle the “auto-scrolling” of the page’s frame when you are within a GridView. This happens no matter WHAT other control your textbox might be within. If any ancestor of the textbox is a GridView, sayonara Keyboard Obstruction Handling.

So… why?

My thought process goes back to why the GridView exists. I feel as though it exists solely to support the Semantic Zoom capability, which you wouldn’t really be doing on an input form.

So, what can we do instead?

Well, we can do what’s shown here and replace it with a simple StackPanel, for one.

But what if you need DataBinding to a list of items? The solution there is fairly simple: Use an ItemsControl. Voila.