Event to know if Panel lost focus in Winforms application? - winforms

I have a simple Form with 4 panels in it. Each of those panels are docked in the parent, to ensure only one is visible at a given time. Now, for Panel2, when it is moving from front to back, I would like to work on that event. I am making panels visible by calling panel.BringToFront()
I have tried Leave event but that doesn't work. For Form, the event is Deactivate, what's the event for Panel?

I'm thinking LostFocus is what you're looking for.
Edit
As another strategy, you know that calling panel.BringToFront will queue an update in your UI. Wherever you are calling panel.BringToFront, perhaps you could just call one of your own methods, or trigger one of your own events. This way, you know when the event will be triggered, and exactly what will trigger it.
The reason I thought of this is that I doubt your Panel will ever actually have the focus itself - rather, one of its child controls will likely have the focus. By doing you own event trigger, you don't have to rely on something as volatile as focus. Plus, even if the Panel did have the focus, it's always possible that it could lose focus in other ways than your own panel switching.
Edit #2
Here's an attempt at a quick implementation of my previous ramblings. I'll be making the assumption that this code be placed somewhere in the same class as all your Panel instances (i.e. in your Form class).
// This will be the custom event to which you can subscribe
// in order to detect a switch in panels.
public event EventHandler PanelSwapEvent;
// This reference the currently visible panel - should be set
// to the default panel in the form's constructor, if possible.
private Panel currentPanel;
// This actually switches the panels, to minimize code duplication.
private void switchToPanel(Panel p)
{
Panel lastPanel = currentPanel;
currentPanel = p;
// Move the panels, and invoke the event.
p.BringToFront();
if(PanelSwapEvent != null)
PanelSwapEvent(lastPanel, new EventArgs());
}
// Here's the actual event handler (replaces your
// pnlServiceInfo_LostFocus handler).
private void PanelSwapHandler(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// whatever you want to do when panels are swapped
}
In this example, the sender of the event handler is the panel that lost "focus". Using it is as simple as saying switchToPanel(pnl_whatever) to indicate that you would like to switch from the current panel to the panel named pnl_whatever.

Related

Strategy for differentiating TouchUp from TouchLeave, and TouchDown from TouchEnter?

For the basic scenario described in the msdn overview (under Touch and Manipulation) TouchEnter and TouchLeave are fired for every corresponding TouchDown and TouchUp respectively. Unlike the mouse, the Touch and Stylus are not constrained to maintain contact with the screen.
Is there a way to use TouchEnter and TouchLeave is to capture only when a finger is dragged into the UIElement. As these events are fired for every touchUp and touchDown, what is the best way to differentiate these events?
One strategy that would work for the single finger case, is to have a flag set on TouchDown, and check if the flag is set on TouchUp. This allows some condition checks on TouchUp. However, for multiple fingers, it isn't feasible.
There are no PreviewTouchEnter and PreviewTouchLeave events fired, only PreviewTouchDown and PreviewTouchUp. The sequence of events for a finger lowered on to a UIElement and then raised over it is as follows:
TouchEnter
PreviewTouchDown
TouchDown
PreviewTouchUp
TouchUp
TouchLeave
This sequence doesn't help differentiate a TouchEnter that has happened due to a finger dragged across the screen into the UIElement, from a finger that is lowered onto the UIElement directly. Am I missing something, or does the framework not support such differentiation itself?
Can you use the TouchDevice Class to keep track of where touches are generated. New touches are given a new ID, so you could distinguish between existing touches and new ones, and which elements are capturing the device. I guess that circumvents the Manipulation events and the normal processes, but I hope that helps.
If you retrieve a TouchPoint for the event, there is a property on it named Action which tells you whether it is a Down, a Move or a Up event.
void m_element_TouchEnter(object sender, System.Windows.Input.TouchEventArgs e)
{
var touchPoint = e.GetTouchPoint(m_someElement);
if (touchPoint.Action == System.Windows.Input.TouchAction.Move)
{
//This is a "true" TouchEnter event
}
else if (touchPoint.Action == System.Windows.Input.TouchAction.Down)
{
//This is a "true" TouchDown event.
}
}

Disable button until WPF form loads

I have a WPF form with Next and Prev buttons for navigating to the next and previous months of a custom made calendar. I want to disable these buttons as soon as the user clicks on them and enable them when the mext/prev month data loads. That would prevent the user from clicking on the buttons repeatedly and the events queuing up and getting fired slowly one by one.
So far, I have tried putting the calendar data load stuff in a Dispatcher thread, and maintaining a flag to indicate whether the page is busy or not. Doesn't seem to work, and the events still pile up.
I also tried using a command for the button clicks, have the execute handler load the data, and CanExecute decide whether data can be loaded, based on a IsBusy flag. Doesn't work either.
Any pointers?
I suppose you have an event fired when the month is loaded.
To me the best solution would be to manually disable the buttons on their click event, and enable them back when the month is loaded.
I see no problem on adding some code behind in the view if needed.
What type of Command are you using?
A RelayCommand will re-run the CanExecute method when one of the properties changes, however a DelegateCommand will not.
You need to manually raise the CanExecuteChanged event on a DelegateCommand when your CanExecute parameters change.
void MyViewModel_PropertyChanged(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
if (e.PropertyName == "IsBusy")
{
// Might need a Cast here if your command is of type ICommand
LoadDataCommand.RaiseCanExecuteChanged();
}
}
I fixed this by using a BackgroundWorker to load the view and checking BackgroundWorker.IsBusy in the next/prev event handlers.

Databinding falls behind event notification - discussion

Found an interesting problem that I first found in WinForms, and found again in Silverlight, and more than likely WPF as well when it comes to databinding.
I have a tab control with several tabs. As users click across the tabs, each time should be valid before allowing the user to switch from the tab.
For example, user is in a text box which is updated. Binding of text boxes is not flushed until the control loses focus. Loss of focus occurs when the cursor is moved from the control, and focus is given to another control.
In this scenario, the user tabs into a control (let's use text box for this example), and updates the text box. At this point the databinding has not flushed the control, and hence the VM has not yet seen the change. The user then uses their mouse to click the next tab of the control.
At this point things get interesting. I used the PreviewSelectionChanged (Telerik RadTabControl), as I want to check things out before the jump to the next tab occurs, and it also gives me the ability to cancel the event.
However, when I look at the VM, in this event, it still does not have the updated data. I see the VM is clean, and go ahead and allow the jump to the next tab.
As soon as this event is over however, the databindings flush, and the VM gets updated. what now? The events are out of sync! When the mouse was used to click the next tab, the textbox should have lost focus, flushed it's bindings, before the Preview of the Tab click! It's to late to jump back and say oops we didn't catch that in time!
I think I found an interesting work around to this issue - but I'm not 100% sure it will work 100% of the time. I cancel the current event, but then I use the Dispatcher and create a delegate pointing to another method with the same signature as the current event. The Dispatcher will add this message to the message pump, which by this time will now (hopefully?) be behind the messages of the VM updating...
My two questions are:
1) I'm assuming that the textbox control either didn't flush when the mouse left the control, or the process that was fired was too slow and hence the preview message was on the pump before the databinding - either way I see this to be a major issue.
2) Is the workaround a good solution?
Ok, first to answer question 1:
Just because the mouse left the textbox area, doesn't mean that the textbox lost focus. It only loses focus once something else gets focus. For example, if you moved the mouse out of the textbox and click on some other control on your page (it can be anything from a scroll viewer to another textbox, etc.) then your textbox will lose focus.
Now, based on that, the events do not happen in the wrong order. What happens is; your click event on the other tab triggers both the textbox to lose focus (and the data binding to take place) and the move to the next frame, and based on that, you basically get a race condition where the moving to the next tab happens before the databinding takes place.
About question 2:
What you can do is, set the UpdateSourceTrigger to Explicit, you will however be forced to then have some kind of text_changed event and manually update the binding.
You can read more about that here. It might not be the most complete explanation but is a good place to start.
On the other hand, you can associate some events to the textbox and force the textbox to lose focus on those events (e.g. mouse out).
Just an idea: Why not do everything in the VM's PropertyChanged event?
protected override void OnThisViewModelPropertyChanged(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e) {
if(e.PropertyName == "WhateverProperty") {
//Do your magic here for whatever you want to set
}
}
Have your TabItems bound to a collection that will control is being disabled or not.
<sdk:TabControl>
<sdk:TabItem IsEnabled="{Binding SomeProperty, Converter={AmIDisabledOrWhatConverter}}" />
</sdk:TabControl>
That way, everything is triggered whenever a property is chaned in the vm. No more timing issues since everything is on the vm.
Just my two cents.
There's a design defect here, and you're trying to work around the defect instead of fixing it. You shouldn't have to figure out how to cancel the Click event on the tab. The tab shouldn't be processing Click events in the first place.
Generally speaking, if it's not legal for the user to click on a control, the control shouldn't be enabled. The tab should be disabled until the state of the view model is valid.
Your view model should be exposing a command for navigating to the next tab, and the tab should be bound to the command. The command's CanExecute method should only return true when the state of the view model on the current tab is valid.
This doesn't fix your other problem, which is that Silverlight doesn't support UpdateSourceTrigger="PropertyChanged" out of the box. But that's a solved problem (here is one example).
Note that if you implement commands to handle this wizard-like navigation in your application, you can, down the road, change the view to use something other than a tab control (e.g. to use navigation buttons like an actual wizard, or something like Telerik's PanelBar) without having to screw around with event handlers.
Change your bindings to include UpdateSourceTrigger="PropertyChanged".
This will ensure that your data sources are updated on every key stroke, not just LostFocus.
MyOwnTextBox()
{
this.TextChanged += (s, e) => UpdateText();
}
private void UpdateText()
{
BindingExpression be = GetBindingExpression(TextProperty);
if (be != null && be.ParentBinding.Mode == BindingModes.TwoWay)
{
be.UpdateSource();
}
}
I am using this class it updates my binding on the fly, however there is issue with empty string and null values, if your destination property is nullable string then this will update empty string in your destination property. You can get workaround by using some sort of string converter which will use null instead of empty string in case of nullable strings.

What's the best way to prevent losing TextBox focus when there is a validation error?

I've messed around with PreviewLostKeyboardFocus which almost gets you there. I've seen a couple of implementations using LostFocus, but that just forces focus back on the TextBox after it's lost focus and you can easily see this shifting on the screen. Basically, I'm just looking for the same type of behavior you could get with using OnValidating in WinForms.
In my opinion, the best way is generally not to do it. It is almost always better to just disable the other controls or prevent saving until the value is valid.
But if your design really needs this ability, here is what you should do:
Intercept the Preview version of keyboard and mouse events at your window level, or whatever scope you want to prevent focus changes within (eg maybe not your menu bar).
When the Tab KeyDown or Return KeyDown is detected in the text box, or when a MouseDown is detected outside the text box while it has the focus, call UpdateSource() on the binding expression, then if the validation has failed set Handled=true to prevent the KeyDown or MouseDown event from being processed further.
Also continue handling PreviewLostKeyboardFocus to catch any causes of focus change that aren't from the keyboard or mouse, or that your other code didn't recognize.
To add onto Ray's answer:
UpdateSource is called like so:
BindingExpression be = userTextbox.GetBindingExpression(TextBox.TextProperty);
be.UpdateSource();
Also, as an alternative you can set the text box binding to:
UpdateSourceTrigger = "PropertyChanged";
The latter will cause a continuous check, whereas the former will check when needed (performant).
If you attempt to focus an element inside its own LostFocus handler you will face a StackOverflowException, I'm not sure about the root cause (I suspect the focus kind of bounces around) but there is an easy workaround: dispatch it.
private void TextBox_LostFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
var element = (sender as TextBox);
if (!theTextBoxWasValidated())
{
// doing this would cause a StackOverflowException
// element.Focus();
var restoreFocus = (System.Threading.ThreadStart)delegate { element.Focus(); };
Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(restoreFocus);
}
}
Through Dispatcher.BeginInvoke you make sure that restoring the focus doesn't get in the way of the in-progress loss of focus (and avoid the nasty exception you'd face otherwise)

WPF Focus In Tab Control Content When New Tab is Created

I've done a lot of searching on SO and google around this problem, but can't seem to find anything else to try.
I have a MainView (window) that contains a tab control. The tab control binds to an ObservableCollection of ChildViews (user controls). The MainView's ViewModel has a method that allows adding to the collection of ChildViews, which then creates a new tab. When a new tab is created, it becomes the active tab, and this works fine. This method on the MainView is called from another ViewModel (OtherViewModel).
What I am trying to do is set the keyboard focus to the first control on the tab (an AutoCompleteBox from WPFToolkit*) when a new tab is created. I also need to set the focus the same way, but WITHOUT creating a new tab (so set the focus on the currently active tab).
(*Note that there seem to be some focus problems with the AutoCompleteBox--even if it does have focus you need to send a MoveNext() to it to get the cursor in its window. I have worked around this already).
So here's the problem. The focusing works when I don't create a new tab, but it doesn't work when I do create a new tab. Both functions use the same method to set focus, but the create logic first calls the method that creates a new tab and sets it to active. Code that sets the focus (in the ChildView's Codebehind):
IInputElement element1 = Keyboard.Focus(autoCompleteBox);
//plus code to deal with AutoCompleteBox as noted.
In either case, the Keyboard.FocusedElement starts out as the MainView. After a create, calling Keyboard.Focus seems to do nothing (focused element is still the MainView). Calling this without creating a tab correctly sets the keyboard focus to autoCompleteBox.
Any ideas?
Update:
Bender's suggestion half-worked.
So now in both cases, the focused element is correctly the AutoCompleteBox. What I then do is MoveNext(), which sets the focus to a TextBox. I have been assuming that this Textbox is internal to the AutoCompleteBox, as the focus was correctly set on screen when this happened. Now I'm not so sure. This is still the behavior I see when this code gets hit when NOT doing a create. After a create, MoveNext() sets the focus to an element back in my MainView.
The problem must still be along the lines of Bender's answer, where the state of the controls is not the same depending on whether a new tab was created or not. Any other thoughts?
Final Update
As noted, majocha's suggestion worked.
I wanted to update this in case anyone happened upon this same problem with the AutoCompleteBox. It appears that setting focus does not activate it in the UI--you need to do a MoveNext on it to move focus forward once to the control's internal Textbox. This is based on my debugging experience, which may not be 100% scientific. If I have time, I will attempt to create a small repro project and submit it to the WPFToolkit team.
You can try defering the focus change with
Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(MyChangeFocusAction, DispatcherPriority.ContextIdle);
It will get queued after layout and properties updates are done.
I don't think it's best practice, but it works for me.
The control must be visible to be focused, you may try to defer focusing by subscribing to the IsVisibleChanged event, something similar to the following should work:
public static void setFocusLate(this Control control)
{
DependencyPropertyChangedEventHandler handler = null;
handler = delegate
{
control.Focus();
control.IsVisibleChanged -= handler;
};
control.IsVisibleChanged += handler;
}

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