Access WPF user Control properties - wpf

I've included a WPF control in my Winform C# application, now I would like to access some of the properties of the control. It is a Treeview and I'd like to get this:
Here's the code in XAML:
<TreeView Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0" Margin="5,5,5,5" Name="mytreeview"
BorderThickness="0" FontSize="12" FontFamily="Courier New"/>
And what I'm trying to acomplish:
//host3d is the integration object
host3d.Controls["mytreeview"].Items.Add("test");
I'm getting an error, saying controls doesn't contain that definition "Items" which makes sense, I'm sure there's a way to access the methods of the treeview...

I have created a WPF user control and using ElementHost control to host my wpf control in winform application. Then I can use any property from my user control as below
public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
UserControl1 control = new UserControl1();
elementHost1.Child = control;
}
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
UserControl1 control = elementHost1.Child as UserControl1;
String names = string.Empty; ;
foreach (var item in control.Patients1)
{
names += item.Name + "\n";
}
MessageBox.Show("Name: \n" + names);
}
If you are using WPF you can bind your treeView to a collection and access the collection items from anywhere. I have binding to Patients list and I have direct access to it.

Related

How can I change textbox contents based on which control the mouse is hovering over in WPF?

I have a textbox and several custom controls. Each of the custom controls has a "hint text" property that should appear in the textbox when that control is hovered over.
In winforms I was able to just give the custom control a textbox property and change its text property with events, however in WPF it instead makes a new textbox when I give it a property.
So how can I get the desired functionality?
Assuming your custom controls all inherit from a common base type (which I have called CustomControl as an example)...
XAML:
<TextBox x:Name=TextBox/>
<Button VerticalAlignment="Bottom" Click="ButtonBase_OnClick" MouseEnter="UIElement_OnMouseEnter" MouseLeave="UIElement_OnMouseLeave">test</Button>
Code behind:
private void UIElement_OnMouseEnter(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
TextBox.Text = ((CustomControl) sender).HintText;
}
private void UIElement_OnMouseLeave(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
TextBox.Text = string.Empty;
}

Can I add a DependencyProperty on an windows user control?

I'm trying to host a Visio ActiveX object in a WPF application.
To do this, I created a Windows user control project where I add the Visio object. This windows user control is then hosted on an WPF user control in an WindowsFormsHost object.
<WindowsFormsHost Name="wfHost" Grid.Row="1">
<wf:VisioUserControl FileNamePath="?"/>
</WindowsFormsHost>
What I would like to do is to bind the value of the FileNamePath member to the value of a TextBox element which defines the path.
The project follows the MVVM pattern, so there is no way that I can access the VisioUserControl object in my ViewModel.
The solution I was thinking about is to bind the FileNamePath member to the value of the TextBox that contains the path, but it is not a DependencyProperty and it seems that I'm not able to define one in the code behind of the windows user control.
So, is there any workaround to perform this binding?
Thanks in advance.
You can solve this by creating a UserControl that wraps your VisioUserControl (I wrote a simple tutorial on UserControl creation here). You can then add a FileNamePath dependency property to your UserControl. In the property changed handler of this dependency property, set the FileNamePath property on the VisioUserControl that this user control wraps.
Ok I have created an example of a WPF usercontrol that is hosting a Winforms control, with a dependency property that is bound to the winforms control's text property.
public partial class ActiveXObjectHoster : UserControl
{
private static System.Windows.Forms.Label testObject;
public ActiveXObjectHoster()
{
InitializeComponent();
testObject = new System.Windows.Forms.Label();
windowsFormsHost1.Child = testObject;
}
#region Properties
public static DependencyProperty FileNameProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("FileName", typeof(string), typeof(ActiveXObjectHoster), new UIPropertyMetadata("",new PropertyChangedCallback(OnFileNamePropertyChanged)));
public string FileName
{
get { return (string)GetValue(FileNameProperty); }
set
{
SetValue(FileNameProperty, value);
}
}
private static void OnFileNamePropertyChanged(
DependencyObject sender, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
testObject.Text = (string)e.NewValue;
}
#endregion
}
Here is the xaml of the control (its very simple)
<UserControl xmlns:my="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Forms.Integration;assembly=WindowsFormsIntegration"
x:Class="WPFTestApp2.Controls.ActiveXObjectHoster"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
x:Name="ObjectHost"
Height="100" Width="100">
<Grid>
<my:WindowsFormsHost x:Name="windowsFormsHost1" />
</Grid>
</UserControl>
What you need to do is change the test object from a Label to whatever Visio object you were using. Then in the property callback change the text property to the filename or whatever property you wanted.
As mentioned above this is done in the code behind, but that is fine for a user control, its completely decoupled from whatever thing is using it, you just need to bind to the filename property of the control.
Here is a link to a project I created showing how the control is used. There is a textbox whos text is bound to the FileName property, which changes the Winforms Labels text.
You can place this in a Winforms Usercontrol if you want to use it in winforms (like you mentioned in your reply to my comment)
Try replacing the label for your control and see if it works.
Why not implement a UserControl to wrap the WindowsFormHost and the Visio user control? Then you cann add a Dependency Property, and implement in the code behind a handler for the PropertyChangedCallback, and appropiately interact with the WinForms control

Loading and binding a serialized view model to a WPF window?

I'm writing a one-window UI for a simple ETL tool. The UI consists of the window, the code behind for the window, a view model for the window, and the business logic. I wanted to provide functionality to the users to save the state of the UI because the content of about 10-12 text boxes will be reused between sessions, but are specific to the user. I figured I could serialize the view model, which contains all the data from the textboxes, and this works fine, but I'm having trouble loading the information in the serialized XML file back into the text boxes.
Constructor of window:
public ETLWindow()
{
InitializeComponent();
_viewModel = new ViewModel();
this.DataContext = _viewModel;
_viewModel.State = Constants.STATE_IDLE;
Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MainWindow_Loaded);
}
XAML:
<TextBox x:Name="targetDirectory"
IsReadOnly="true"
Text="{Binding TargetDatabaseDirectory, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}"/>
ViewModel corresponding property:
private string _targetDatabaseDirectory;
[XmlElement()]
public string TargetDatabaseDirectory
{
get { return _targetDatabaseDirectory; }
set { _targetDatabaseDirectory = value; OnPropertyChanged(DataUtilities.General.Utilities.GetPropertyName(() => new ViewModel().TargetDatabaseDirectory)); }
Load event in code behind:
private void loadState_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
string statePath = this.getFilePath();
_viewModel = ViewModel.LoadModel(statePath);
}
As you can guess, the LoadModel method deserializes the serialized file on the user's drive.
I couldn't find much on the web regarding this issue. I know this probably has something to do with my bindings. Is there some way to refresh on the bindings on the XAML after I deserialize the view model? Or perhaps refresh all properties on the view model? Or am I completely insane thinking any of this could be done?
Thanks.
Assuming that your loadState_Click event is on the Window code behind you could try this.
private void loadState_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
string statePath = this.getFilePath();
this.DataContext = ViewModel.LoadModel(statePath);
}

How do I load user controls dynamically?

How can I load a user control[s] in a window dynamically (using code at runtime)?
I'd highly recommend having a look at Prism, since composite user interfaces is what it's for. However, since this would require you refactoring your entire application, I'll also answer your question directly.
If you want a single user control in a container, put a ContentControl in your XAML and then set the Content property. If you are using a view model, you could bind Content to a FrameworkElement property on the view model:
contentControlInstance.Content = new CustomUserControl();
If you want multiple controls in a list, use an ItemsControl and assign an ObservableCollection<> to the ItemsSource property. If you are using a view model, you could bind ItemsSource to an ObservableCollection property on the View Model.
Then you can just add/remove views from that ObservableCollection:
private ObservableCollection<FrameworkElement> views =
new ObservableCollection<FrameworkElement>();
private void Initialize()
{
itemsControl.ItemsSource = views;
}
private void AddView(FrameworkElement frameworkElement)
{
views.Add(frameworkElement);
}
For adding multiple controls you need container.
Suppose you have a StackPanel container "myStack"
<Window ..>
<StackPanel Name="MyStack" />
</Window>
You can create control dynamically and add it to container. See code below
void AddButtons()
{
Button B1=new Button(),B2=new Button(), B3=new Button();
B1.Content="Hello";
B2.Content="First";
B3.content="Application";
// Now you can set more properties like height, width, margin etc...
MyStack.Children.Add(B1);
MyStack.Children.Add(B2);
MyStack.Children.Add(B2);
}
Or use binding. Here's a really crude example showing how different WPF controls can be shown in a single WPF window using ContentControl and binding (which is what a toolkit like Prism or Caliburn Micro does).
XAML:
<UserControl x:Class="ViewA">
...
<UserControl/>
<UserControl x:Class="ViewB">
...
<UserControl/>
Code:
void ShowViewModelDialog (object viewModel)
{
var host = new MyViewHost();
FrameworkElement control = null;
string viewModelName = viewModel.GetType().Name;
switch (viewModelName )
{
case ("ViewModelA"):
control = new ViewA();
break;
case ("ViewModelB"):
control = new ViewB();
break;
default:
control = new TextBlock {Text = String.Format ("No view for {0}", viewModelName);
break;
}
if (control!=null) control.DataContext = viewModel;
host.DataContext = control;
host.Show(); // Host window will show either ViewA, ViewB, or TextBlock.
}

WPF M-V-VM: Get selected items from a ListCollectionView?

I've got a WPF app using the Model-View-ViewModel pattern.
In my ViewModel I've got a ListCollectionView to keep a list of items.
This ListCollectionView is bound to a ListBox in my View.
<ListBox Grid.Row="1" ItemsSource="{Binding Useragents}" SelectionMode="Multiple"/>
The ListBox has SelectionMode=Multiple, so you can select more items at one time. Now the ViewModel needs to know which items has been selected.
The problem is: in the View-Model-ViewModel pattern the ViewModel has no access to the View, so I can't just ask the ListBox which items has been selected. All I have is the ListCollectionView, but I can't find a way to find which items has been selected in there.
So how do I find which items has been selected in the ListBox? Or a trick to achieve this (maybe bind something to a Boolean 'IsSelected' in my items? But what? How?)
Maybe someone who is using this pattern, too, can help me here?
You need to create a ViewModel that has the concept of IsSelected on it and is bound to the IsSelected property of the actual ListBoxItem that represents it in the View using the standard WPF bindings architecture.
Then in your code, which knows about your ViewModel, but not the fact that it's represented by any specific View, can just use that property to find out which items from the Model are actually selected irrespective of the designers choice for how its represented in the View.
PRISM MVVM Reference Implementation has a behaviour called SynchronizeSelectedItems, used in Prism4\MVVM RI\MVVM.Client\Views\MultipleSelectionView.xaml, which synchronizes checked items with the ViewModel property named Selections:
<ListBox Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="1" IsTabStop="False" SelectionMode="Multiple"
ItemsSource="{Binding Question.Range}" Margin="5">
<ListBox.ItemContainerStyle>
<!-- Custom style to show the multi-selection list box as a collection of check boxes -->
<Style TargetType="ListBoxItem">
<Setter Property="Template">
<Setter.Value>
<ControlTemplate TargetType="ListBoxItem">
<Grid Background="Transparent">
<CheckBox IsChecked="{Binding IsSelected, RelativeSource={RelativeSource TemplatedParent}, Mode=TwoWay}"
IsHitTestVisible="False" IsTabStop="True"
AutomationProperties.AutomationId="CheckBoxAutomationId">
<ContentPresenter/>
</CheckBox>
</Grid>
</ControlTemplate>
</Setter.Value>
</Setter>
</Style>
</ListBox.ItemContainerStyle>
<i:Interaction.Behaviors>
<!-- Custom behavior that synchronizes the selected items with the view models collection -->
<Behaviors:SynchronizeSelectedItems Selections="{Binding Selections}"/>
</i:Interaction.Behaviors>
</ListBox>
Go to http://compositewpf.codeplex.com/ and grab it all or use this:
//===================================================================================
// Microsoft patterns & practices
// Composite Application Guidance for Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight
//===================================================================================
// Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
// THIS CODE AND INFORMATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY
// OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
// LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
// FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
//===================================================================================
// The example companies, organizations, products, domain names,
// e-mail addresses, logos, people, places, and events depicted
// herein are fictitious. No association with any real company,
// organization, product, domain name, email address, logo, person,
// places, or events is intended or should be inferred.
//===================================================================================
using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Specialized;
using System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Interactivity;
namespace MVVM.Client.Infrastructure.Behaviors
{
/// <summary>
/// Custom behavior that synchronizes the list in <see cref="ListBox.SelectedItems"/> with a collection.
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// This behavior uses a weak event handler to listen for changes on the synchronized collection.
/// </remarks>
public class SynchronizeSelectedItems : Behavior<ListBox>
{
public static readonly DependencyProperty SelectionsProperty =
DependencyProperty.Register(
"Selections",
typeof(IList),
typeof(SynchronizeSelectedItems),
new PropertyMetadata(null, OnSelectionsPropertyChanged));
private bool updating;
private WeakEventHandler<SynchronizeSelectedItems, object, NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs> currentWeakHandler;
[SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Usage", "CA2227:CollectionPropertiesShouldBeReadOnly",
Justification = "Dependency property")]
public IList Selections
{
get { return (IList)this.GetValue(SelectionsProperty); }
set { this.SetValue(SelectionsProperty, value); }
}
protected override void OnAttached()
{
base.OnAttached();
this.AssociatedObject.SelectionChanged += this.OnSelectedItemsChanged;
this.UpdateSelectedItems();
}
protected override void OnDetaching()
{
this.AssociatedObject.SelectionChanged += this.OnSelectedItemsChanged;
base.OnDetaching();
}
private static void OnSelectionsPropertyChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
var behavior = d as SynchronizeSelectedItems;
if (behavior != null)
{
if (behavior.currentWeakHandler != null)
{
behavior.currentWeakHandler.Detach();
behavior.currentWeakHandler = null;
}
if (e.NewValue != null)
{
var notifyCollectionChanged = e.NewValue as INotifyCollectionChanged;
if (notifyCollectionChanged != null)
{
behavior.currentWeakHandler =
new WeakEventHandler<SynchronizeSelectedItems, object, NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs>(
behavior,
(instance, sender, args) => instance.OnSelectionsCollectionChanged(sender, args),
(listener) => notifyCollectionChanged.CollectionChanged -= listener.OnEvent);
notifyCollectionChanged.CollectionChanged += behavior.currentWeakHandler.OnEvent;
}
behavior.UpdateSelectedItems();
}
}
}
private void OnSelectedItemsChanged(object sender, SelectionChangedEventArgs e)
{
this.UpdateSelections(e);
}
private void UpdateSelections(SelectionChangedEventArgs e)
{
this.ExecuteIfNotUpdating(
() =>
{
if (this.Selections != null)
{
foreach (var item in e.AddedItems)
{
this.Selections.Add(item);
}
foreach (var item in e.RemovedItems)
{
this.Selections.Remove(item);
}
}
});
}
private void OnSelectionsCollectionChanged(object sender, NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs e)
{
this.UpdateSelectedItems();
}
private void UpdateSelectedItems()
{
this.ExecuteIfNotUpdating(
() =>
{
if (this.AssociatedObject != null)
{
this.AssociatedObject.SelectedItems.Clear();
foreach (var item in this.Selections ?? new object[0])
{
this.AssociatedObject.SelectedItems.Add(item);
}
}
});
}
private void ExecuteIfNotUpdating(Action execute)
{
if (!this.updating)
{
try
{
this.updating = true;
execute();
}
finally
{
this.updating = false;
}
}
}
}
}
Look at this blogpost by Josh Smith The Initially Selected Item when Binding to a Grouped ICollectionView
The solution of Drew Marsh works very well, I recommend it. And I have another solution !
Model View ViewModel is a Passive View, you can also use a Presentation Model to access some datas of your presentation without being coupled with WPF
(this pattern is used in the Stocktrader example of PRISM).
Drew Marsh's answer is fine if you have a small list, if you have a large list the performance hit for finding all your selected items could be nasty!
My favorite solution is to create an attached property on your ListBox that then binds to an ObservableCollection which contains your selected items.
Then with your attached property you subscribe to the items SelectionChanged event to add/remove items from your collection.
For me the best answer is to break a little the principle of MVVM.
On the code behind
1. Instanciate your viewModel
2. add an event handler SelectionChanged
3. iterate through your selected items and add each item to your list of the viewModel
ViewModel viewModel = new ViewModel();
viewModel.SelectedModules = new ObservableCollection<string>();
foreach (var selectedModule in listBox1.SelectedItems)
{
viewModel.SelectedModules.Add(selectedModule.ToString());
}
Here is another variant of the View-Model-ViewModel Pattern where the ViewModel has access to the view through an IView interface.
I encountered quite a lot scenarios where you can't use WPF binding and then you need a way in code to synchronize the state between the View and the ViewModel.
How this can be done is shown here:
WPF Application Framework (WAF)
Have a look over here
http://blog.functionalfun.net/2009/02/how-to-databind-to-selecteditems.html
David Rogers' solution is great and is detailed at the below related question:
Sync SelectedItems in a muliselect listbox with a collection in ViewModel

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