I want to make a program by WPF which includes several pages.
I have a Window and several Pages now.
In order to navigate, I use
this.Content = new Page1();
in the main window (from Window to Page), and
((Window)this.Parent).Content = new Page1();
between pages (from Page to Page), because Page can only be sub-element of Window or Frame.
However, the second line of code above looks quite ugly.
Is there a better way to achieve the same goal?
I have coded from several Windows Phone applications before, and I think it might be better to navigate between Pages rather than hide/show elements (such as Grids).
If your navigation code is on your Page class, either :
move it to the window class
create an event in the Page class, and react to it on the Window class.
Is there any reason why you can't just put a Frame in your Window ?
You could use NavigationService.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms750478.aspx
http://www.paulstovell.com/wpf-navigation
Maybe this could help:
http://azerdark.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/multi-page-application-in-wpf/
Related
I'm following a small tutorial on how to switch pages in Silverlight. It can be found here:
http://jesseliberty.com/2008/05/31/multi-page-applications-in-silverlight/
It's slightly older, but everything worked.
The technique used here is to have a seperate page with a "Navigator function". If you're on Page1, you use something like this:
PageSwitcher ps = this.Parent as PageSwitcher;
ps.Navigate(new Page2());
With Navigate being the only function in PageSwitcher:
public void Navigate(UserControl nextPage) {
this.Content = nextPage;
}
Still, the way this is handled seems kind of odd. I'm still wondering what the difference is between adding a new User Control and Page. I've tried adding them both, they very much seem the same.
It seems like this is just using a hidden page to engineer the switching between the public pages. This seems somehow over the top to me. Is there an other way?
I think the difference between Page and UserControl is that Page has some Navigation methods like NavigationService.
For another way, check out Caliburn Micro's Screens and Conductors. It lets you do some advanced navigation stuff with little effort, check out the sample, HelloScreens. It adds life-cycle to your Screens. Also the ability to know when the view's been bound and nice stuff like that.
I have several Wpf pages in my project, these pages have different forms and ui control indide theme. The image below shows the mainWindow and there are two button.
I want to show a specific page when I click on + or Edit button using the Frame control which is highlighted.
apparenatly this woks:
Page1 me = new Page1();
mainFrame.Content = me;
But it has an IE navigation sound and a toolbar appears after going to page2.
any better way to show diffrent pages and not using a frame?
You may want to convert the Page into a UserControl. You can then put that control inside some other container, such as a Grid. You'll have to manually swap out the pages in the container when navigating, but it looks like you're doing that anyway.
The purpose of the Frame control is to allow navigation. If you don't want navigation, then don't use Frame. You can turn off the navigation toolbar, but that won't actually disable navigation - there are mouse buttons and keyboard shortcuts for navigating back.
If you just want to host a UI element without navigation, use something simpler, like a Border element - put the content in its Child property. You can change the Child as many times as you like at runtime.
I was able to set the frame control's NavigationUIVisibility to Hidden. This solved the problem for me. I am using Visual Studio 2010 though so it might not be applicable to older VS versions.
Ian Griffiths, what you suggest increases the workload on the developer substantially. And you are stepping outside of the underlying paradigm of XAML.
In my case I'm developing a game application and have chosen WPF as the UI platform as much as possible. For me that means a intro screen, character select, etc. The purpose of Pages is to encapsulate the navigational need of such an application.
I suspect your downvote is due to your statement "If you don't want navigation...". Upon re-reading the original posters question I see he does want navigation, he just wants it on his own terms. I would have voted you down too. YotaXP's solution neglects the issues with using a User Control, particularly if it may contain other User Controls. It looks like Chris Calvert came up with an actual solution to the poster's issue within the parameters of the problem.
I would be curios if I could override the navigation hotkeys and such within the existing paragimn but that's properly in its own thread.
I'm new to using WPF. I have the following program I want to create:
-Application opens up with one button
-User clicks button and it takes them to a new page with various input.
I'm confused about how I need to do this. I tried opening a new window, but I don't want a window to open up, I want it to be all one Window. I tried creating a new page and navigating to it using NavigationService but couldn't get it to work.
Basically I want to create a workflow where the user enters some stuff, clicks the next button and is taken to a new page to enter some more information. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Use Pages in your application and use NavigationService to switch between them.
For example, if you have two pages in your paplication, "Page1" and "Page2" you can include the following in Page1.xaml:
<Button Content="Next" Click="NextClicked" />
and this in your Page1.xaml.cs:
void NextClicked(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
NavigationService.Navigate(new Page2());
}
Alternatively you could use this:
NavigationService.Navigate(new Uri("Page2.xaml", UriKind.Relative));
Generally it is easier to do the first, because you can also set properties of Page2. For example, if Page2 has a public "CurrentItem" property you could say:
NavigationService.Navigate(new Page2 { CurrentItem = this.Something });
You can't do that with the Uri-based syntax.
You can also create instances of various pages (Page1, Page2, etc) and store them in your Application object, then switch to them like this:
NavigationService.Navigate(App.Page2);
This way if you ever navigate to Page2 later you will get exactly the same Page2 object. Alternatively you could use NavigationService's Journaling feature to help with this.
Initially there doesn't seem to be much of a difference in the preference of what should be used: Pages or Windows. However, looking at the intended goal of the application, I would suggest using UserControls instead of Pages, as Pages seem to focus on Web related content, though they can be used in stand alone applications as well. Another argument that has been made in another post is referring to the MSDN-documentation, and points out that in using a Page the NavigationWindow that it is hosted in does not remember the instance of the content that is navigated to and thus other WPF-techniques are needed to store that content in your navigation history.
NavigationWindow does not store an instance of a content object in navigation history. Instead, NavigationWindow creates a new instance of the content object each time it is navigated to by using navigation history. This behavior is designed to avoid excessive memory consumption when large numbers and large pieces of content are being navigated to. Consequently, the state of the content is not remembered from one navigation to the next. However, WPF provides several techniques by which you can store a piece of state for a piece of content in navigation history.
If you use a UserControl, you wouldn't have that problem if your goal is to create a native application anyway. You can download this template as an example to use UserControls instead.
The use of the NavigationService is the right way to do that. You have to add a frame to your windows to show your pages, then navigating between them with the NavigationService.
You can change your application object's MainWindow reference to another Window object.
Application.Current.MainWindow = new SecondWindowToBeDisplayed();
I want to create a parent window and host a couple of childWindows inside it, and show them according to user events:
in other words:
on parentWindow.load() event, i load the main Childwindow.. and according to the user's choices i unload/close , and then load a different childwindow.
-all of that happening "inside" the parent window" -
giving the user the feeling of a paging application instead of a "forms/window" application.
is that doable ? and r there any better practices to have create a similar effect ?
I am not sure what you are going for exactly, but it seems like one of two options will help you:
TabControl/HeaderedContentControl: your main window could contain a large HeaderedContentControl (such as TabControl) and each of your "child windows" can be individual tabs. With a little coding, the user will be able to close certain tabs, make new tabs, etc. Josh Smith's MVVM demo application is an excellent example of the right way to do this.
Page-based navigation: using NavigationWindow and and Pages you can create a browser-style application that could have various child windows, each displayed one at a time, and with support for navigation history, hyperlinking, etc.
I am currently loading the default file, page.xaml, but in that page, I am loading the content from another xaml file. With each "page" change, I just load the content from a different xaml file, and on and on.
Example: this.Content = new StartPage();
I'm running into some syntax issues, however, because of the way I am changing my content, and was wondering if there is a definitive answer on how to accomplish this?
For example, when trying to capture user's keystrokes, I would normally do:
this.Keydown += new KeyEventHandler(this_KeyDown);
but that event handler doesn't even fire in my situation. So, I'm looking for a new approach to my content-switching approach before revisiting the keystroke problem.
Have you looked at using Silverlight 3. It has a new Page Navigation functionality.Silverlight 3 Navigation
As far as content switching goes, I've always done what you propose in the question. Normally I create a MainPage.xaml which has has the frame of the application (usually a Grid for me). One of the cells in the Grid is considered the content area of the app. When the user takes an action that I would consider to be navigation, I create a new instance of a Page, which for me is a file like MyUserControl.xaml, and then add it to the appropriate content cell in the Grid. MainPage stays around for the life of the application and assists with navigation.
If you want something fancier, and want to take advantage of browser based back/forward buttons, you could look into the SL3 navigation like Correl suggested.
A Big problem with what your're doing is that journalization doesnt take place automatically when you swap out framework elements by creating them and plugging them in the codebehind. This means that you lose the back and forward functionality of the browser. You can manually journalize stuff when you swap out pages, but this is simply a hack to get your navigation approach working.
Take a look at Prism at www.compositewpf.codeplex.com/, specifically the MVVM method of GUI design, it'll save you alot of time later on. And remember, you dont need to go hardcore when you look at MVVM, u could always cut out alot of "dynamic" functionality if you're a one man band
Also swap to silverlight 3 and use the navigation application. If you cant, take a look at helix 0.3, it'll provide a more asp oriented approach to navigation. the link provides a really really good starting point, its a three part article, i suggest you read all three and download the sample application and understand it.
A book could have been written on your question, this has to suffice for now.