UserControl LostFocus and UpdateSourceTrigger - wpf

I have a UserControl that contains three buttons (ButtonA, ButtonB and ButtonC). These three buttons change the UserControl's Value dependency property.
When I try to use this control with UpdateSourceTrigger=LostFocus binding, it behaves incorrectly:
<custom:MyUserControl Value="{Binding SomeProp, Mode=TwoWay, UpdateSourceTrigger=LostFocus}" />
When using LostFocus as UpdateSourceTrigger, the idea is to update the value of SomeProp only when control looses focus. The problem is that, when user clicks on ButtonA, then clicks on ButtonB, UserControl.LostFocus, and imediatelly after UserControl.GotFocus events are fired. This in turn updates SomeProp value.
So, how can I prevent this? When interacting with ButtonA, ButtonB and ButtonC, which are the children of MyUserControl, each time when switching from one button to another, UserControl.LostFocus is fired, and thats not what I want. I need for UserControl.LostFocus to be fired ONLY when control truly losses focus, and not when its children change focus.
Any ideas?

Related

How can I tell if a SelectionChanged event was a result of UI interaction or programmatic change in the ViewModel in WPF?

I have a ListBox with a two way binding from my View Model to SelectedItem. When the View Model is updated, SelectedItem is updated and the SelectionChanged event is fired. SelectionChanged is also fired through direct user interaction in the UI e.g. clicking with mouse, touch selection, keyboard input.
I would like to perform a certain action in SelectionChanged only if the change came from UI interaction.
There appears to be properties in SelectionChangedEventArgs that cater to this (e.g. OriginalSource and UserInitiated) but they are not different between the two cases.
Is distinguishing between the two possible?
You can use SourceUpdated and TargetUpdated events. If you set Binding's NotifyOnSourceUpdated and NotifyOnTargetUpdated properties to True, then you can handle those events to distinguish the source of the change:
<ListBox ItemsSource="{Binding TestCollection}"
SelectedItem="{Binding TestSelection, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnSourceUpdated=True, NotifyOnTargetUpdated=True}"
SourceUpdated="ListBox_SourceUpdated" TargetUpdated="ListBox_TargetUpdated"
SelectionChanged="ListBox_SelectionChanged" />
Those events are called before SelectionChanged so you either can take action in their handlers or set some flag to use in SelectionChanged or whatever.

MVVM not binding after initial value has been entered

I'm facing an odd issue with my WPF (MVVM) project.
I have a few controls which bind to the properties in the ViewModel. INotifyPropertyChanged is configured, everything (initially works). I type in some values into my controls and I click a button. I can see, by stepping through the code, all the property values are what they should be. So far, it is text book.
Now I notice the issue. After I click the button, some logic is performed, such as saving these values to a database. I can then edit the control values and then save to the database again. The properties at this point to do not update.
Binding clearly works, because the output shows no binding errors and when I click the Save button, the properties are correct. However, after I click the save button, and then change the property values, the properties are not updatdd. I cannot fathom why this is the case.
As a trial, I added the PropertyChanged to the update source trigger and this seems to fix the issue, however, I've never had to do this before. Any ideas what could be wrong?
I don't believe the answer is 2 way binding (I am happy to be wrong) because it binds!
<TextBox Text="{Binding DataSource, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}" Grid.Row ="1" Grid.Column="2" />
Where as normally I would use
<TextBox Text="{Binding DataSource}" Grid.Row ="1" Grid.Column="2" />
UpdateSourceTrigger property determines the time, when the binding has to be updated. The default value for this property is LostFocus. So by default, after you type something and move the focus out, the binding will update. If you set the property value to PropertyChanged, binding will update immediately once you entered the value in text box.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.data.binding.updatesourcetrigger(v=vs.110).aspx
In your case, the binding is updated on button click, since focus transferred to Button from textbox. Once the UpdateSourceTrigger set to PropertyChanged, the binding will update on every text change.

WPF databinding after Save button click

I have an app and a Settings window with TabControl containing couple of TabItems. Each of them have some fields (textboxes) which are databinded to the same Singleton object.
Is there any elegant and WPF-like way to the the databinding only after Save button click?
Right now it's databinded immediately after changing the content of the textbox, and I want that singleton have old values and update them only after clicking the save button.
For your DataBinding object used in XAML for the Textbox, use the UpdateSourceTrigger property with value Explicit as below:
<TextBox Name="itemNameTextBox"
Text="{Binding Path=ItemName, UpdateSourceTrigger=Explicit}" />
When you set the UpdateSourceTrigger value to Explicit, the source value only changes when the application calls the UpdateSource method as below (you can put below code in Save Click event):
BindingExpression be = itemNameTextBox.GetBindingExpression(TextBox.TextProperty);
be.UpdateSource();
Instead of raising the notification of change on the set of each property (as that is what triggers the re-binding, and update), put all the raise notifications in the save button. Then when you click save, you save and tell the View to rebind to those (now set) properties.
To further this:
Bind to non singleton properties (as you want to keep the old settings until save is clicked) - without a raise notification on those properties.
In your save button, set your singleton properties, then raise all the notifications of the other properties.
In your cancel button, set your other properties to the values of the singleton properties, and raise all the notifications.
Don't forget to set your properties to the singleton properties when the view has been loaded the first time, and raise all the notifications (just like a cancel).
If you are using WPF change the UpdateSourceTrigger to LostFocus. I think that will solve the purpose.
Text="{Binding Path=MyText, UpdateSourceTrigger=LostFocus, Mode=TwoWay}"

WPF bind a control visibility to the focused property of another control

I have a combobox that displays a list of items, and I want to place a button next to it which triggers a command to see the details of the selected item. So far, so good. Now I want the button to be visible only if the combobox has focus (or is in "edit" mode, but not only when the popup is open).
I thought I could bind the visibility of the button to some focus property of the combobox, something like this:
<Button Content="Details" Visibility="{Binding ElementName=elementListComboBox,
Path=IsFocused, Converter={StaticResource Bool2VisibilityConverter}}"/>
But I found no way to know if the control I want is focused or not. I looked at the FocusManager.FocusedElement, but I don't know how to get the focused control I want inside the binding. Is there a way to achieve this in XAML?
Ok, the way to get this working as I wanted is this:
<Button Command="{Binding SomeCommand}"
Content="Details"
Focusable="False"
Visibility="{Binding ElementName=elementListComboBox,
Path=IsKeyboardFocusWithin,
Converter={StaticResource Bool2VisibilityConverter}}"/>
Two key factors here: bind the button's visibility to IsKeyboardFocusWithin property of the combobox, and set the button's Focusable property to false, else it will get collapsed when you want to click on it.
Hope this is useful.

Saving in a WPF data entry form

I have a WPF MVVM app that contains a data entry form with several text boxes. I noticed that when the user is in a textbox and makes a change that the Context object does not know a change was made until the user tabs out of that text box. Once the user tabs out of the textbox, everything works fine. But I would like to know a change was made without the user having to tab off the textbox.
Is this possible?
The way my form works is that the Save and Cancel buttons bind to ICommands. These commands have a "CanSave" and "CanCancel" method that checks to see if the EntityState changed in anyway but allowing the buttons to enable. This works great but the user has to tab off the textbox to make things work.
How can I make this work without the user tabbing off a changed textbox?
Set the binding direction (Mode) of the TextBox to be TwoWay instead of the default and set the UpdateSourceTrigger to be PropertyChanged instead of default... like so:
<TextBox x:Name="txtPersonLastname" Text="{Binding Person.LastName, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged, ValidatesOnDataErrors=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" />
(I have some additional attributes for validation in this excerpt.)
The key difference is the PropertyChanged which will update your backing property in the ViewModel. When the user types anything into the TextBox, that PropertyChanged event will fire, and in turn should trigger your CanSave, Save routines.
In Blend, it should look like this:
You have to chnage the Update Source Trigger Property to refelct the chages in your ViewModel
For Example
<TextBox Text={Binding Path=MyProperty,Mode=TwoWay,UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}></TextBox>
Dont forget that My Property should fire Property Changed from ViweModel

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