title: Setting column width to 50% of available width in windows phone 8.1
body: <p>Developing/learning about WP8.1 for the 1st time.</p>
  
  <p>This question is about layout.</p>
  
  <p>I have 2 buttons.</p>
  
  <p>I want them at the bottom of my screen.</p>
  
  <p>I want each button to take 50% of the available width of the screen.</p>
  
  <p>Similar to this:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/vKaBu.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
  
  <p>So far I have this:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kxdln.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
  
  <p>And this is my markup:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;Page
      x:Class="Informed.BasicPage1"
      xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
      xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
      xmlns:local="using:Informed"
      xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
      xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
      mc:Ignorable="d"
      Background="{ThemeResource ApplicationPageBackgroundThemeBrush}"
      &gt;
  
      &lt;Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot"&gt;
  
          &lt;Grid.ChildrenTransitions&gt;
              &lt;TransitionCollection&gt;
                  &lt;EntranceThemeTransition/&gt;
              &lt;/TransitionCollection&gt;
          &lt;/Grid.ChildrenTransitions&gt;
          &lt;Grid.ColumnDefinitions&gt;
              &lt;ColumnDefinition Width="Auto"/&gt;
              &lt;ColumnDefinition Width="Auto"/&gt;
          &lt;/Grid.ColumnDefinitions&gt;
          &lt;Grid.RowDefinitions&gt;
              &lt;RowDefinition Height="Auto"/&gt;
              &lt;RowDefinition Height="*"/&gt;
              &lt;RowDefinition Height="45"/&gt;
          &lt;/Grid.RowDefinitions&gt;
  
          &lt;!-- Title Panel --&gt;
          &lt;StackPanel Grid.Row="0" Margin="19,0,0,0" Grid.ColumnSpan="2"&gt;
              &lt;Image Name="imgHeader" Grid.Row="0" Source="Images/bannershort.jpg" Stretch="UniformToFill"/&gt;
              &lt;TextBlock Text="Log In" Margin="0,-6.5,0,26.5" Style="{ThemeResource HeaderTextBlockStyle}" CharacterSpacing="{ThemeResource PivotHeaderItemCharacterSpacing}"/&gt;
          &lt;/StackPanel&gt;
          &lt;StackPanel  Grid.Row="1" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Grid.ColumnSpan="2"&gt;
              &lt;TextBox Name="email" Header="Email address"/&gt;
              &lt;PasswordBox  Name="password" Header="Password"/&gt;
              &lt;CheckBox Name="showPassword" Content="Show password"/&gt;
  
              &lt;!-- Content body --&gt;
              &lt;TextBlock Name="body" Style="{StaticResource MessageDialogContentStyle}" TextWrapping="Wrap"&gt;
                  &lt;TextBlock.Text&gt;
                      Enter Email Address and Password created.
                  &lt;/TextBlock.Text&gt;
              &lt;/TextBlock&gt;
          &lt;/StackPanel&gt;
          &lt;StackPanel Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="0" Margin="0,0,0,0" Grid.ColumnSpan="1"&gt;
              &lt;Button Content="hello"  Grid.Column="0" FontFamily="Global User Interface" /&gt;
          &lt;/StackPanel&gt;
          &lt;StackPanel Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="1"  Grid.ColumnSpan="1"&gt;
          &lt;Button  Content="hello2" Grid.Column="1" FontFamily="Global User Interface" /&gt;
          &lt;/StackPanel&gt;
      &lt;/Grid&gt;
  &lt;/Page&gt;
  </code></pre>