Windowscommunitytoolkit: [OrbitView] Specify Child OrbitViewItem's locations for layout

[hupo376787]

Hi, I want to show the OrbitViewDataItem label, like below

And also I want to specify the location of each item, for example,
Shen ------ 12 o'clock
David ------7 o'clock
......

How? Thanks.

[IbraheemOsama]

@nmetulev ping

[michael-hawker]

@hupo376787 there's no way to specify a specific angle for an item currently, they're all laid out automatically in this method.

You can add labels by restyling the item template though (from the sample app as well):

            <controls:OrbitView.ItemTemplate>
              <DataTemplate>
                <Grid>
                  <Grid.RowDefinitions>
                    <RowDefinition Height="*"/> <!-- Have this space to keep image centered on line -->
                    <RowDefinition Height="2*"/>
                    <RowDefinition Height="*"/>
                  </Grid.RowDefinitions>
                  <controls:DropShadowPanel x:Name="DropShadowPanel"
                                            HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch"
                                            HorizontalAlignment="Center"
                                            VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch"
                                            BlurRadius="20"
                                            Color="Black" 
                                            Grid.Row="1">
                    <Ellipse Stretch="Uniform" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalAlignment="Center"
                             Width="{Binding ActualHeight, ElementName=DropShadowPanel}">
                      <Ellipse.Fill>
                        <ImageBrush ImageSource="{Binding Image}" />
                      </Ellipse.Fill>
                    </Ellipse>
                  </controls:DropShadowPanel>
                  <TextBlock Text="{Binding Label}" Grid.Row="2" 
                             HorizontalAlignment="Center" FontSize="10"/>
                </Grid>
              </DataTemplate>
            </controls:OrbitView.ItemTemplate>

[nmetulev]

Interesting suggestion. One way to add this would be to have a ShowItemLabel property on the OrbitView. However, I'm not sure if this is something that would be used by most developers.

[hupo376787]

@michael-hawker Thanks.

[hupo376787]

@nmetulev I just came up an idea about the orbit view. Imagine we use orbit view to achieve a solar system 3D animation, it would be useful, haha

[nmetulev]

I like it, that's the reason why I first created the orbit view, to show orbits :)

[nmetulev]

looks like @michael-hawker answer was the right answer so I'll close this issue. However, feel free to reopen if that is not the case

[michael-hawker]

@nmetulev there was still the part about specifying custom locations for the orbit items. Could be interesting to have a property which if set to non-null would override the algorithm for positioning?

[nmetulev]

Ah, you are right, that would be interesting to add. All reopen the issue and mark it as help wanted for those looking to help implementing this feature.

[michael-hawker]

I'll think about this a bit for 2.2 along with what I want to do for the UniformGrid #1532 improvements. I feel like having attached properties on the items could be useful here as an approach to specify an angle/distance for specific items and then layout others accordingly.

[avknaidu]

@michael-hawker @nmetulev i started writing some code with a Dependancy property (ItemsAngle) as an idea which you can specify on the OrbitView Control and using that angle all items will be laid out. for example if you have static 4 items in OrbitView you can set this property as 90 and all 4 items will be separated by 90 degrees. If you do not set this property, then it will auto calculate angle based on total no of items. Never got a chance to complete implementing this since i had to meet some project deadlines @ work.

I would suggest something like above + also the suggestion @michael-hawker mentioned in the last comment. That way developers will have 3 options.

1) Layout Items in a uniform fashion,
2) Specify Layout angle of each item on OrbitView Directly.
3) Specify Layout angle of each item on OrbitViewItem.

Maybe i am overthinking the improvements?

[hupo376787]

Great idea!

[nmetulev]

@avknaidu, all three sounds like a great improvement IMO and we should do them. :)

[michael-hawker]

Moving to 3.0 as I'm not getting to the UniformGrid until then.

[lucaasrojas]

@michael-hawker can you check this issue? Because it is not assigned to a milestone on Github.

[ray1997]

So, is there any progress on custom start angle or specify angle of this control?

[nmetulev]

This is open for anyone to pick up, feel free to submit a PR if you are up to it.

[ray1997]

Well.. I'm totally not good with math and calculating stuff. But in my desparate need of customizable angle for my control. I was looking and found an actual thing I want. Maybe there is some code there that can salvaging be a reference and put into OrbitView?

Here is that project: https://github.com/CatalystCode/radial-menu

[michael-hawker]

Thanks for the link @ray1997, I thought we had an issue for a radial menu, but I guess not. It'd be a neat control to have. I think it'd be a separate control, but could maybe share some layout logic here.

@felixrieseberg would you be interested in contributing to the toolkit? It seems like you could convert the UserControl to a TemplatedControl pretty easily.

Aside, there was also the request from #1154 to be able to collapse/expand the control, so that maybe they could align more than we think?