We have a legacy MFC application which we are extending with new WPF views and dialog boxes. I am trying to implement F1 help in a WPF dialog box that gets invoked from the MFC main window.
Initially I added a KeyBinding to the WPF dialog for F1, and had it fire a command that runs HtmlHelp; something like this:
<Window.Resources>
<command:CommandReference x:Key="ShowF1Help" Command="{Binding ShowHelpCommand}"/>
</Window.Resources>
<Window.InputBindings>
<KeyBinding x:Name="ShowHelp" Gesture="F1" Command="{StaticResource ShowF1Help}"/>
</Window.InputBindings>
This brought up Help, but unfortunately the keyboard event was also picked up by the MFC window; even though the WPF dialog was modally displayed on top of it, the MFC window still received F1 and so it launched HtmlHelp a second time, showing its own topic.
I searched for a way to mark the event as handled within the XAML/KeyBinding element but had no luck. So I tried to brute-force it and replaced that with a KeyDown handler in the code-behind, marking the event as handled, like this:
private void WindowKeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
if (e.Key == Key.F1)
{
MyDialogVM.ShowContextSensitiveHelp();
e.Handled = true;
}
}
This didn't work; the event still winds up getting handled by the MFC window. I also tried PreviewKeyDown --same results.
I have a feeling that I'm overlooking something obvious, but it sure looks like marking a WPF event as handled only affects WPF code, and the MFC message pump has no knowledge that the managed code has seen or handled a given keyboard event.
Is there a way to prevent keyboard events that are handled in a WPF dialog box from also being seen by the MFC application that invoked the dialog?
Thanks in advance.
Couple of questions: 1) is the owner of the WPF dialog the MFC window? If you didn't do anything explicitly, it isn't by default. 2) is the main window disabled when the wpf dialog is up? If it isn't, probably because of issue 1.
You need something like:
var hlpr = new System.Windows.Interop.WindowInteropHelper( xaml_window );
hlpr.Owner = mfc_window_handle;
I have a WPF UserControl that contains a button. I also have a WPF Window that contains a button.
In both the UserControl and the Window I place the following line in XAML:
UIElement.PreviewMouseLeftButtonDown="OnPreviewMouseLeftButtonDown"
and in 'OnPreviewMouseLeftButtonDown' I've place a debug print that displays args.Source.
When I click on the button that is inside the window, I get the button as the EventArgs source. However, when I click the button that inside the UserControl (which is also inside a window, so I could test it, but not the same window) I get the UserControl as the EventArgs source.
I tired to see if there is some decorator around the UserControl (using snoop) but it seems straight forward.
I can't understand what is so special about UserControl in WPF that I don't get the right sender. Can someone please explain to me what am I missing?
While the question is old, I recently ran into a similar problem myself, involving the ContextMenuOpening event. Some amount of searching yielded the source code to UserControl here, which contains the following section:
// Set the EventArgs' source to be this UserControl
internal override void AdjustBranchSource(RoutedEventArgs e)
{
e.Source=this;
}
So, apparently UserControl sets the Source of ANY routed event to itself. I have no idea why it does this, though...
Use e.OriginalSource as mentioned above. If you need to find the button, then you can use VisualTreeHelper.GetParent to find the actual Button control.
I picked up on this (with some effort) when my WPF MVVM application tried to show two consecutive error dialog windows before the main window was launched: After OKing the first window, the application went into a loop and the second error dialog never showed up.
I fixed the problem, but I was hoping someone could enlighten me as to why this happened.
It seems that, if there are no non-modal open windows, if one dialog window has been closed, all new dialog windows are immediately closed, without displaying.
Its very easy to reproduce, so here is some highly conceited code to illustrate the problem. This code is complete, so using just this, you should be able to reproduce it.
Create a Window control for the dialog window, with no code behind, and just the following XAML:
<Window x:Class="ForumExampleShowDialogIssue.OKDialogWindow"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
Title="OKDialogWindow" Height="300" Width="300">
<StackPanel>
<TextBlock Text="This is a Window with a single button. The button is set to Cancel, so it closes the window."
TextWrapping="Wrap"
Margin="5"/>
<Button Content="OK" IsCancel="True" IsDefault="True"
Margin="5"/>
</StackPanel>
Next, use the standard WPF App class, with nothing new in the XAML, but with the following in the code behind:
protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)
{
base.OnStartup(e);
OKDialogWindow alwaysOpen = new OKDialogWindow();
alwaysOpen.Show();
while (true)
{
OKDialogWindow dialogWindow = new OKDialogWindow();
Console.WriteLine("Before show");
dialogWindow.ShowDialog();
Console.WriteLine("After show");
}
}
Delete the MainWindow.XAML if it exists, and remove the reference to it from the App.XAML header.
Run. (the program, not like Forest).
This works as expected. The alwaysOpen window remains open, while one after the other dialogWindow instances appear in dialog mode, closing when OK is clicked, then showing the next one.
HOWEVER, this breaks when you change OnStartup to the following:
protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)
{
base.OnStartup(e);
while (true)
{
OKDialogWindow dialogWindow = new OKDialogWindow();
Console.WriteLine("Before show");
dialogWindow.ShowDialog();
Console.WriteLine("After show");
}
}
When there is no constantly open window, the first dialog window is the only one that works. After that, countless "Before show" and "After show" messages are printed to the console, but no new dialog windows appear - they are closed automatically as soon as they are shown.
Surely this can't be the intended behaviour? Do you get the same result? Any idea why this happens?
This is the intended behavior.
by Default the first open window is the MainWindow.
By default the only window in the list becomes the MainWindow (if others are to be removed).
Application Class is designed to exit if no windows are present in
windows list.
Check this:
http://www.ageektrapped.com/blog/the-wpf-application-class-overview-and-gotcha/
Resolve
You can goto the App.xaml file and add this in the root <Application> node:
ShutdownMode="OnExplicitShutdown"
This means that even when you close all the windows, the application still runs until you explicitly call the InvokeShutdown() Method.
The default value of ShutdownMode is OnMainWindowClose。
Explanation
In your first snippet, you create a window first that never close. This is the MainWindow and it never close. Thus Application never shutdown. But in your second snippet, your MainWindow is the first dialog that you have created. Application will shutdown as soon as the window close. Your other dialogs would never show after Application shutted down, right?
See MSDN: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.application.shutdownmode(v=vs.110).aspx.
I was wondering if there was a way to close a window when a property in the view model changes. In my situation I have a login window with an Ok button bound to a LoginCommand so that the function Login executes when Ok is clicked. If the login is successful, I want the window to close.
Now I know I could do this by adding an event handler on my button, which calls a function like this:
private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
DatabaseCredentialsViewModel vm = (this.DataContext as DatabaseCredentialsViewModel);
vm.Login();
if (vm.LoginSuccessful)
{
this.Close();
}
}
But I was wondering if there was a way to close the window when LoginSuccessful property changes without having an event handler on my button (I like working only with command binding and not having event handlers on Click event).
Thank you
Here's a similar question, which filled my need.
Basically, you use an attached property for your window, which binds to a bool? property on your VM. When the VM property is set to something non-null, the attached property sets the Window's DialogResult, which will automatically close the window.
If you want you can try this different approach.
You can do this by associating the OK button with a command. Create an event such as LoginSuccess and when then add a window.Close() to the list of event callback. Then you have only to raise the LoginSuccess event to close the windows.
In my opinion, this respect the MVVM pattern defining an event that can be used for other trigger and not only for closing windows.
You could do this fairly easily by creating an attached property or Behavior (from Blend SDK) that hooked into your Window.
I posted a sample behavior to the Expression Code Gallery which does something similar (though definitely different) - it prevents a window from being closed via a property on the VM. You could very easily adapt the code (included in the download) to just close the window on a property change.
I have a UserControl which contains a TextBox. When my main window loads I want to set the focus to this textbox so I added Focusable="True" GotFocus="UC_GotFocus" to the UserControls definition and FocusManager.FocusedElement="{Binding ElementName=login}" to my main windows definition. In the UC_GotFocus method i simply call .Focus() on the control i want to focus on but this doesn't work.
All i need to do is have a TextBox in a UserControl receive focus when the application starts.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
I recently fixed this problem for a login splash screen that is being displayed via a storyboard when the main window is first loaded.
I believe there were two keys to the fix. One was to make the containing element a focus scope. The other was to handle the Storyboard Completed event for the storyboard that was triggered by the window being loaded.
This storyboard makes the username and password canvas visible and then fades into being 100% opaque. The key is that the username control was not visible until the storyboard ran and therefore that control could not get keyboard focus until it was visible. What threw me off for awhile was that it had "focus" (i.e. focus was true, but as it turns out this was only logical focus) and I did not know that WPF had the concept of both logical and keyboard focus until reading Kent Boogaart's answer and looking at Microsoft's WPF link text
Once I did that the solution for my particular problem was straightforward:
1) Make the containing element a focus scope
<Canvas FocusManager.IsFocusScope="True" Visibility="Collapsed">
<TextBox x:Name="m_uxUsername" AcceptsTab="False" AcceptsReturn="False">
</TextBox>
</Canvas>
2) Attach a Completed Event Handler to the Storyboard
<Storyboard x:Key="Splash Screen" Completed="UserNamePassword_Storyboard_Completed">
...
</Storyboard>
and
3) Set my username TextBox to have the keyboard focus in the storyboard completed event handler.
void UserNamePassword_Storyboard_Completed(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
m_uxUsername.Focus();
}
Note that calling item.Focus() results in the call Keyboard.Focus(this), so you don't need to call this explicitly. See this question about the difference between Keyboard.Focus(item) and item.Focus.
Its stupid but it works:
Pop a thread that waits a while then comes back and sets the focus you want. It even works within the context of an element host.
private void ListView_SelectionChanged(object sender, SelectionChangedEventArgs e)
{
System.Threading.ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(
(a) =>
{
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(100);
someUiElementThatWantsFocus.Dispatcher.Invoke(
new Action(() =>
{
someUiElementThatWantsFocus.Focus();
}));
}
);
}
Just recently I had a list-box that housed some TextBlocks. I wanted to be able to double click on the text block and have it turn into a TextBox, then focus on it and select all the text so the user could just start typing the new name (Akin to Adobe Layers)
Anyway, I was doing this with an event and it just wasn't working. The magic bullet for me here was making sure that I set the event to handled. I figure it was setting focus, but as soon as the event went down the path it was switching the logical focus.
The moral of the story is, make sure you're marking the event as handled, that might be your issue.
“When setting initial focus at application startup, the element to
receive focus must be connected to a PresentationSource and the
element must have Focusable and IsVisible set to true. The recommended
place to set initial focus is in the Loaded event handler"
(MSDN)
Simply add a "Loaded" event handler in the constructor of your Window (or Control), and in that event handler call the Focus() method on the target control.
public MyWindow() {
InitializeComponent();
this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MyWindow_Loaded);
}
void MyWindow_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) {
textBox.Focus();
}
since i tried a fuzquat's solution and found it the most generic one, i thought i'd share a different version, since some complained about it looking messy. so here it is:
casted.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(new Action<UIElement>(x =>
{
x.Focus();
}), DispatcherPriority.ApplicationIdle, casted);
no Thread.Sleep, no ThreadPool. Clean enough i hope.
UPDATE:
Since people seem to like pretty code:
public static class WpfExtensions
{
public static void BeginInvoke<T>(this T element, Action<T> action, DispatcherPriority priority = DispatcherPriority.ApplicationIdle) where T : UIElement
{
element.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(priority, action);
}
}
now you can call it like this:
child.BeginInvoke(d => d.Focus());
WPF supports two different flavors of focus:
Keyboard focus
Logical focus
The FocusedElement property gets or sets logical focus within a focus scope. I suspect your TextBox does have logical focus, but its containing focus scope is not the active focus scope. Ergo, it does not have keyboard focus.
So the question is, do you have multiple focus scopes in your visual tree?
I found a good series of blog posts on WPF focus.
Part 1: It’s Basically Focus
Part 2: Changing WPF focus in code
Part 3: Shifting focus to the first available element in WPF
They are all good to read, but the 3rd part specifically deals with setting focus to a UI element in a UserControl.
Set your user control to Focusable="True" (XAML)
Handle the GotFocus event on your control and call yourTextBox.Focus()
Handle the Loaded event on your window and call yourControl.Focus()
I have a sample app running with this solution as I type. If this does not work for you, there must be something specific to your app or environment that causes the problem. In your original question, I think the binding is causing the problem.
I hope this helps.
After having a 'WPF Initial Focus Nightmare' and based on some answers on stack, the following proved for me to be the best solution.
First, add your App.xaml OnStartup() the followings:
EventManager.RegisterClassHandler(typeof(Window), Window.LoadedEvent,
new RoutedEventHandler(WindowLoaded));
Then add the 'WindowLoaded' event also in App.xaml :
void WindowLoaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
var window = e.Source as Window;
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(100);
window.Dispatcher.Invoke(
new Action(() =>
{
window.MoveFocus(new TraversalRequest(FocusNavigationDirection.First));
}));
}
The threading issue must be use as WPF initial focus mostly fails due to some framework race conditions.
I found the following solution best as it is used globally for the whole app.
Hope it helps...
Oran
I converted fuzquat's answer to an extension method. I'm using this instead of Focus() where Focus() did not work.
using System;
using System.Threading;
using System.Windows;
namespace YourProject.Extensions
{
public static class UIElementExtension
{
public static void WaitAndFocus(this UIElement element, int ms = 100)
{
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(f =>
{
Thread.Sleep(ms);
element.Dispatcher.Invoke(new Action(() =>
{
element.Focus();
}));
});
}
}
}
I've noticed a focus issue specifically related to hosting WPF UserControls within ElementHosts which are contained within a Form that is set as an MDI child via the MdiParent property.
I'm not sure if this is the same issue others are experiencing but you dig into the details by following the link below.
Issue with setting focus within a WPF UserControl hosted within an ElementHost in a WindowsForms child MDI form
I don't like solutions with setting another tab scope for UserControl. In that case, you will have two different carets when navigating by keyboard: on the window and the another - inside user control. My solution is simply to redirect focus from user control to inner child control. Set user control focusable (because by default its false):
<UserControl ..... Focusable="True">
and override focus events handlers in code-behind:
protected override void OnGotFocus(RoutedEventArgs e)
{
base.OnGotFocus(e);
MyTextBox.Focus();
}
protected override void OnGotKeyboardFocus(KeyboardFocusChangedEventArgs e)
{
base.OnGotKeyboardFocus(e);
Keyboard.Focus(MyTextBox);
}
What did the trick for me was the FocusManager.FocusedElement attribute. I first tried to set it on the UserControl, but it didn't work.
So I tried putting it on the UserControl's first child instead:
<UserControl x:Class="WpfApplication3.UserControl1"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml">
<Grid FocusManager.FocusedElement="{Binding ElementName=MyTextBox, Mode=OneWay}">
<TextBox x:Name="MyTextBox"/>
</Grid>
... and it worked! :)
I have user control - stack panel with two text boxes.The text boxes were added in contructor, not in the xaml. When i try to focus first text box, nothing happend.
The siggestion with Loaded event fix my problem. Just called control.Focus() in Loaded event and everthing.
Assuming you want to set focus for Username textbox, thus user can type in directly every time it shows up.
In Constructor of your control:
this.Loaded += (sender, e) => Keyboard.Focus(txtUsername);
After trying combinations of the suggestions above, I was able to reliably assign focus to a desired text box on a child UserControl with the following. Basically, give focus to the child control and have the child UserControl give focus to its TextBox. The TextBox's focus statement returned true by itself, however did not yield the desired result until the UserControl was given focus as well. I should also note that the UserControl was unable to request focus for itself and had to be given by the Window.
For brevity I left out registering the Loaded events on the Window and UserControl.
Window
private void OnWindowLoaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
ControlXYZ.Focus();
}
UserControl
private void OnControlLoaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
TextBoxXYZ.Focus();
}
I set it in the PageLoaded() or control loaded, but then I'm calling WCF async service and doing stuff that seems to lose the focus. I have to to set it at the end of all the stuff I do. That's fine and all, but sometimes I make changes to the code and then I forget that I'm also setting the cursor.
I had same problem with setting keyboard focus to canvas in WPF user control.
My solution
In XAML set element to Focusable="True"
In element_mousemove event create simple check:
if(!element.IsKeyBoardFocused)
element.Focus();
In my case it works fine.