How to get rid of Panel margins?

Question

I have a feeling that there is something wrong in general with Mathematica's way of dealing with margins and spaces among/around objects in Graphics, Grid-s, and alike. This is a constant problem for me, and for many others I assume. I usually end up to do some pixel-pushing or other workarounds, but this is getting more and more annoying with every year. Consider the following example:

 Panel[
     Graphics[{Circle[]},
        ImageSize -> 300, ImageMargins -> 0, ImagePadding -> 0, 
        Frame -> True, FrameTicks -> None, PlotRange -> {{-1, 1}, {-1, 1}}, 
        PlotRangePadding -> 0, Background -> White, 
        Method -> {"ShrinkWrap" -> True}],
     FrameMargins -> 0, ImageMargins -> 0, ImageSize -> All, 
     Background -> Lighter[Pink, .6]]

I have two questions related to the code above:

Q1: How to get rid of the pink frame margin without setting Panel's FrameMargins explicitly to a negative number? I would assume, a zero-width margin is ... zero-width.

Q2: Why does the left right and bottom part of the Frame of the internal Graphics disappear and how can I prevent it?

Edit

Various workarounds can be used, e.g. Pane or Framed. The problem with these is that they don't have the look and feel Panel provides:

CreateDialog[Pane[{1, 2, 3}], WindowTitle -> "Pane"];
CreateDialog[Framed@Pane[{1, 2, 3}], WindowTitle -> "Framed Pane"];
CreateDialog[Panel[{1, 2, 3}], WindowTitle -> "Panel"];

While Panel looks good in a dialog window, the other two do not.

Answer 1

In these situations I like to use Pane instead of Panel. It has no frame or extra margins.

Pane[Graphics[{Circle[]}, ImageSize -> 300, Frame -> True, 
  FrameTicks -> None]]

Does this help?

---

In case if you just want a Panel with no margins, not even the small margins that are left after FrameMargins -> 0:

The problem is that the Panel margin is styled by the operating system and will look different on different platforms. For example, on Windows XP it has an "engraved" look. This would be not possible without some extra margin. If we take away the system-styled margins, then all we're left with is a Pane.

Answer 2

Framed is a way to avoid the frustrations with Panel; that is, ...Margins settings work as one would expect: With FrameMargins->0 and FrameMargins->1 the following

 Row[{Framed[
 Graphics[{Circle[]}, ImageSize -> 300, ImageMargins -> 0, 
 ImagePadding -> 4, Frame -> True, FrameTicks -> None, 
 PlotRange -> {{-1, 1}, {-1, 1}}, PlotRangePadding -> .4, 
 Background -> White, Method -> {"ShrinkWrap" -> True}], 
 FrameMargins -> 0, ImageMargins -> 0, ImageSize -> All, 
 Background -> Lighter[Pink, .6]], "   ", 
Framed[Graphics[{Circle[]}, ImageSize -> 300, ImageMargins -> 0, 
ImagePadding -> 4, Frame -> True, FrameTicks -> None, 
PlotRange -> {{-1, 1}, {-1, 1}}, PlotRangePadding -> .4, 
Background -> White, Method -> {"ShrinkWrap" -> True}], 
FrameMargins -> 1, ImageMargins -> 0, ImageSize -> All, 
Background -> Lighter[Pink, .6]]}]

gives

Answer 3

With respect to your second question,

Q2: Why does the left and bottom part of the Frame of the internal Graphics disappear and how can I prevent it?

Did you mean to say "right and bottom part of the Frame..."?

In any case, you might want to experiment with PlotRangePadding. For, example, PlotRangePadding -> 0.01 produces the following:

You can also adjust the PlotRangePadding on the {{left, right}, {bottom,top}}, as in PlotRangePadding -> {{0, 0.01}, {0.01, 0}} (see below):

or PlotRangePadding -> {{0, 0.01}, {0.03, 0}}

I don't understand why adding the additional padding to the bottom causes the black line to appear. I had thought the black lines at the left and top were to convey shadows (to create the illusion that the panel were slightly sunken), but a bottom shadow works against this interpretation.

I don't think this solves your problem but it may shed some light on it.