How to draw a rectangle on a WPF canvas

Question

I'm trying to draw a Rectangle on a Canvas as follows:

System.Windows.Shapes.Rectangle rect;
rect = new System.Windows.Shapes.Rectangle();
rect.Stroke = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black);
rect.Fill = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black);
rect.Width=200;
rect.Height=200;
Canvas.SetLeft(rect,0);
Canvas.SetTop(rect,0);
front_canvas.Children.Add(rect);

Why would this code not draw a rectangle?

The canvas is defined in the associated XAML as follows:

<Canvas Height="200" Width="200" Name="front_canvas" Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0">      
</Canvas>

The canvas shows up fine. I can tell because of the gap it leaves in the layout grid.

Answer 1

This should draw your rectangle as a 200x200 black square, provided front_canvas is displayed correctly.

Why would this code not draw a rectangle?

The main reasons this would not draw are:

• front_canvas is not visible
• front_canvas is not in the visual tree and being displayed correctly
• Some other FrameworkElement is obscuring front_canvas, at least the upper left corner.
• There is another object in the canvas at a higher z order.

Note that you'd typically also want to set StrokeThickness if you want to see the Stroke you specify.