Avalonia Layout with Zafiro.Avalonia

Master modern, clean, and maintainable Avalonia UI layouts. Focus on semantic containers, shared styles, and minimal XAML.

🎯 Selective Reading Rule

Read ONLY files relevant to the layout challenge!

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The five guides below are bundled; the author-local Angor solution is not. Examples are partial and need the actual Avalonia/Zafiro/package versions and XML namespace declarations; UntouchedClassBehavior and icon resources must exist in that installation. Do not assume MultiBinding supplies logical And/Or without a suitable converter, or merge style files as ResourceDictionary resources when they contain Styles. Use StyleInclude for style collections and ResourceInclude for resource dictionaries as appropriate to the file root. Keep icons accessible, preserve focus/keyboard behavior and test light/dark themes, text scaling and localization. Avoiding converters/code-behind is a design preference, not a universal correctness or performance rule.

📑 Content Map

File	Description	When to Read
themes.md	Theme organization and shared styles	Setting up or refining app themes
containers.md	Semantic containers (HeaderedContainer, EdgePanel, Card)	Structuring views and layouts
icons.md	Icon usage with IconExtension and IconOptions	Adding and customizing icons
behaviors.md	Xaml.Interaction.Behaviors and avoiding Converters	Implementing complex interactions
components.md	Generic components and avoiding nesting	Creating reusable UI elements

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🔗 Related Project (Exemplary Implementation)

For a real-world example, refer to the Angor project: /mnt/fast/Repos/angor/src/Angor/Avalonia/Angor.Avalonia.sln

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✅ Checklist for Clean Layouts

• Used semantic containers? (e.g., HeaderedContainer instead of Border with manual header)
• Avoided redundant properties? Use shared styles in axaml files.
• Minimized nesting? Flatten layouts using EdgePanel or generic components.
• Icons via extension? Use {Icon fa-name} and IconOptions for styling.
• Behaviors over code-behind? Use Interaction.Behaviors for UI-logic.
• Avoided Converters? Prefer ViewModel properties or Behaviors unless necessary.

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❌ Anti-Patterns

DON'T:

• Use hardcoded colors or sizes (literals) in views.
• Create deep nesting of Grid and StackPanel.
• Repeat visual properties across multiple elements (use Styles).
• Use IValueConverter for simple logic that belongs in the ViewModel.

DO:

• Use DynamicResource for colors and brushes.
• Extract repeated layouts into generic components.
• Leverage Zafiro.Avalonia specific panels like EdgePanel for common UI patterns.

When to Use

This skill is applicable to execute the workflow or actions described in the overview.

Limitations

• Use this skill only when the task clearly matches the scope described above.
• Do not treat the output as a substitute for environment-specific validation, testing, or expert review.
• Stop and ask for clarification if required inputs, permissions, safety boundaries, or success criteria are missing.