Visual Studio 2010 WPF Designer scale

Question

I made simple interface in Visual Studio 2010. When I launched application everything is bigger. Red square on screenshot represents size of the Button in launched application (On the right). Am I missing something? How to fix it?

P.S. In "Microsoft Expression Blend 4" the same project is exactly the same size as in editor.

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<Window x:Class="WpfControlReview.MainWindow" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Title="MainWindow" mc:Ignorable="d" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" Height="120" Width="256" ResizeMode="NoResize">
    <Grid>
        <Button HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Name="button1" VerticalAlignment="Stretch">
        <StackPanel HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Name="stackPanel1" VerticalAlignment="Center">
            <Label IsHitTestVisible="False" Content="Select your options and press to commit" Name="label1" HorizontalContentAlignment="Center" FontSize="12" />
            <StackPanel Name="stackPanel2" Orientation="Horizontal">
                <Expander Header="Color" Name="expander1">
                </Expander>
                <Expander Header="Make" Name="expander2">
                </Expander>
                <Expander Header="Payment" Name="expander3">
                </Expander>
            </StackPanel>
        </StackPanel>
        </Button>
    </Grid>
</Window>

Answer 1

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but the basic idea here is that you have specifed a default size for your window, but because the control wants to be bigger (for whatever reason) it will automatically resize the window. Could be a bug how Visual Studio calculates window border size in the designer with the specified parameters as it's incorrectly showing it as a bit smaller than when you actually launch your application.

I would rather suggest that you avoid specifying heights/widths if possible. Instead set the Window to SizeToContent=WidthAndHeight. If you need to play with the size of your controls use Margins or MinWidth/MinHeight set directly on your controls.

Answer 2

Are you zoomed out in the visual studio designer? Check the trackbar to your left and scroll it up and down to zoom in and out.