Is there a way to make an entire WPF Window inert after a button click?
The window is invoked via Window.ShowDialog() and after use, the window is no longer needed for interaction but I leave it open to remind the user of the inputs in TextBox's, ListBox's, and give visual feedback via OxyPlot and so on. I leave it to the user to close the window manually.
One solution is to disable all buttons but that's tedious and it still leaves TextBox's functioning. That's not optimal because for anything to be functioning creates the wrong impression that the Window remains for anything other than looking at. It would be better for every control to be non-functioning by a single setting.
I did it by putting a name on the WPF window code behind and then setting .IsEnabled false upon the appropriate button click. All buttons, combo boxes, text boxes, and even OxyPlot became inert at that point and most parts were greyed out.
Consider creating a dedicated boolean dependency property in your code-behind or viewmodel and binding IsEnabled of every TextBox to the property.
Related
i have a main window that contains multiple UserControls, arranged as tab pages and tab groups (much like Visual Studio allows to have two or more editors visible at the same time).
I also have the possibility to open such an UserControl into a seperate floating window.
One of these UserControls contains simple form fields (e.g. text boxes). These text boxes are bounded with common databinding to an object / property. The binding mode is OnValidation (not on OnPropertyChanged).
When I switch the focus from this User Control inside the main window into another UserControl in the Main windows, the validation is automatically performed and the databinding is finised / the changed text will be set on the model object / property that is bounded to that text field.
But if I switch the focus to an UserControl which resides in another (floating) window, the databinding is not finished since no validation is performed.
I know that I can handle this manually by triggering ValidateChildren etc, but this seems to my the wrong way / is ugly.
Is there a "correct" / clean way to solve this issue? I want that the validation is performed as soon as the UserControl loses its focus or the window gets deactivated.
One information: On of my UserControls contains a TreeControl. If I edit a tree node label, and when I switch the focus to another (foating) window, the label edit is finished automatically. I want the corresponding behaviour for usual form fields regarding binding...
Thanks for help!
There is no automatic way to do this. From the point of view of the control, it still has the focus (if you click the title bar or Alt-tab back to the main window, you will notice that the focus remains in the same control). Its just that the form the control is on is not active. If you want it to save changes when your form is deactivated, you must manually trigger it. The best way to do that is probably to override the OnDeactivate method of the form.
protected override void OnDeactivate(EventArgs e)
{
base.OnDeactivate(e);
this.ValidateChildren();
}
I have some simple code for popping up a "dialog"-like thing over part of my application window. The idea is, the user must dismiss the dialog before continuing to work with that part of the page.
This works by hovering a large semi-transparent rectangle over the part of the page that is supposed to be disabled - which does a nice enough job of blocking clicks to the region. You see this sort of thing a lot in WPF and Web apps, I think.
The problem I have is, the user can still reach all those juicy blocked controls by tabbing to them using the keyboard. "No problem", I hear you say, "just set the IsEnabled on the panel to false, thereby blocking keyboard access".
Unfortunately, disabling the controls:
Doesn't look very nice
Tends to have unintended consequences with custom styles and bindings further down the tree
So, is there a better way to disable a part of the page, without setting the "IsEnabled" property, such that it doesn't change the visual appearance of any of the controls?
Thanks,
Mark
Can you put your "dialog" XAML in a popup window? Then, call ShowDialog() on the window to make it a modal window? If you don't want your popup to look like a standard window, you could always syle it to remove borders, etc.
I solved this by subscribing to the PreviewGotKeyboardFocus event, from the parent element in the tree, and then handling the event such that focus never gets passed to the children.
Also, I had to explicitly remove focus from the "disabled" controls as well, of course.
I am working on a silverlight application with a significant number of invisible tab stops.
I am currently busy trying to track them all down and eliminate them.
I am aware that any control that inherits from System.Windows.Controls.Control can take focus and yet I still can't identify where the focus is be going for much of the time when I press tab to move round the UI.
So, my questions are:
Will everything that acts as a tab-stop also take focus (and visa versa)?
What, apart from anything that inherits from Control, can act as a tab-stop?
There is little point in something being a tab-stop if doesn't "also take focus". However not everything that can take focus need be a tab-stop, for example, a control may take the focus when clicked on by the mouse but not via the tab key.
In Silverlight there is nothing that can act as a tab stop that is not also a Control.
The Control class has a IsTabStop property which by default is true. If you have been building your own controls its up to you to build visual states to indicate that the control has the focus. If your control doesn't need the focus for any reason then clear its IsTabStop property early in its constructor.
I have a WPF Textbox, that I want to check that the text value is correct before I allow it to lose keyboard/focus.
I have tried setting e.Handled in the InputBox_LostFocus & InputBox_LostKeyboardFocus events, but it doesnt seem to be achieving what I want.
Any suggestions on how I can lock focus to a Textbox?
The best way to do this is to handle the PreviewLostKeyboardFocus event which is fired while the event is tunneling down to your textbox. Set handle to true and nothing else will receive the notification (meaning focus will not be transfered away from your textbox). Hope this helps.
You can call Mouse.Capture on a UIElement. This will then give you every mouse event that hapens whether on the element or not. but its tricky to use. You can capture the mouse on your text box and register for lost capture events, when you lose capture you can recapture. you have to watch out for strange behaviors. Generally its bad practice (I think) to not allow a user to move off a field. what is better is to allow them to do whatever they want, but disable the button that they push after entering data until all fields are valid (or something similar)
Here are some links
other SO question
msdn sample code
the combo box uses mouse capture to tell if the user has clicked elsewhere in the app to close the combo box if its open if you click on another control (or outside the window)
I dont know if this technique will stop you tabbing off the element. there are two kinds of focus in a wpf app. You have logical focus and keyboard focus. Multiple elements can have logical focus at once (each within a focus scope). think for example a textbox can have logical focus while you are clicking a menu (which has logical focus as well). Keyboard focus can only be in one place at a time. You are going to make a lot of work for yourself. I would seriously consider if you are doing your interaction in the right way. You could spend days getting this interaction correct. If you stop your textbox losing focus, what happens if the user clicks the close button?
heres the msdn article on focus
When the WPF ComboBox is clicked and in-focus, the only interaction that occurs after that can be with the ComboBox. If anything else is interacted with, including the window functions (minimize, restore, close, resize) and any control in the window, the action is ignored and the ComboBox loses focus.
In addition, MouseEnter and MouseLeave on the window buttons are still active, but when MouseEnter on the window border(?) occurs, the mouse pointer does not change to the resize pointer. This behavior makes sense because of the ComboBox's use of the popup control. The popup control exists independently of the main visual tree and if i.e. the window moves or gets resized, the popup remains fixed floating above the main window.
I have tried using Reflector, to see what the ComboBox is doing, but I have not been able to find what I am looking for. Basically, I do not know if this behavior is coming from the window, the ComboBox, or if it has something to do with the popup. How can I solve this problem?
You're right on in your description there, the popup keeps all action focus until it itself loses focus. If you're trying to change the functionality of the ComboBox you may want to look at creating your own ControlTemplate that behaves differently and does not keep the default action of the popup control.
Hope this helps, not entirely sure what you're trying to do.
I know this question is old, but for anyone coming here looking for the answer, it is to use Mouse.Capture.
The ComboBox sets Mouse.Capture(comboBox, CaptureMode.SubTree) in OnIsDropDownOpenChanged. This ensures that all mouse events are captured by the ComboBox. When the Popup is closed Mouse.Capture(null) releases the mouse capture.