I have a WPF application that is in need of syntax highlighting. THIS is exactly what I'm looking for... however its for WinForms. Can I, and if so, how do I add it to my WPF program?
http://wpfsyntax.codeplex.com/
http://devhawk.net/2009/07/09/syntax-highlighting-textboxes-in-wpf-a-sad-story/
There's a walkthrough on MSDN
This walkthrough steps you through an application that hosts a Windows Forms composite control to perform data entry in a WPF application. The composite control is packaged in a DLL. This general procedure can be extended to more complex applications and controls.
In this scenario the WinForms controls are in a separate dll which needs to be signed.
The WPF application needs to use a WinFormsHost control as the container for the control.
Related
I want to integrate two existing applications into one. One of those apps is built on Windows Forms and the other on WPF.
Is it possible to achieve this?
WPF supplies the WindowsFormsHost class that allows you to host WinForms controls inside a WPF window; conversely, WinForms supplies ElementHost that allows you to host WPF controls inside a form.
Unfortunately how well things work out is highly dependent on exactly what you are doing, last time I checked there were more than a few rough edges. For more information, definitely start from this MSDN page.
If you want to have "independent" WPF windows and WinForms forms inside the same application, you will have to make both frameworks "share" some code in your UI thread's message loop. For a primer on how to do that, see here.
There are various classes to help you with this.
For hosting Windows Forms controls in a WPF Window, you can use the WindowsFormsHost class. For hosting WPF Controls in a Windows Forms Window, you can use the ElementHost class.
You can look here for mor information on the subject (windows forms section):
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms753178.aspx
I'm new to WPF and I'm wondering is there anyway to have elements from Winforms toolbox in WPF. I mean the Winforms toolbox has a lot of elements and they're not present in WPF toolbox. for example something like PerformanceCounter in Winforms toolbox is not found in WPF toolbox.
thanks in advance
There are some controls that didn't get represented in WPF, but you can use WindowsFormsHost. As the name indicates, it's purpose is to host the Windows Forms elements.
Walkthrough: Hosting a Windows Forms Control in WPF
I would add that things like PerformanceCounter you can use in code, rather than placing it on a form. Other elements which do have a UI purpose can be placed inside a WindowsFormsHost control. I do this with ReportViewer -- it's a Windows Forms control that has no WPF equivalent.
In a WinForms project there are a number of controls such as MenuStrip, OpenFileDialog, SaveFileDialog.
After a quick look, I can't seem to see the equivalents for these controls in the WPF toolbox.
Is there any way to gain access to these or do they exist in another form?
There are a number of different resources you can use for finding the type of control you need.
Have you looked in the WPF Toolkit?
Have you investigated any third party control vendors?
(Telerik, DevExpress, ComponentOne, Infragistics)
Here's an excellent link comparing the WinForms and WPF control equivalents.
You'd probably recieve a more detailed answer if you gave specifics as to which control you're looking for.
you can add a winforms host into the project but which controls are you after as the wpf does have a decent amount of controls and generally does more in the ui department (but pays in speed usually)
My fairly large WinForm application needs a GUI overhaul, but I can't afford to do it all at once. I need to know if I can slowly add WPF into it, and if so, how?
Can I add WPF dialogs?
Can I add WPF 'panels' within a WinForm so that I can embed WPF elements?
EDIT
Can I do the opposite and put WinForm dialogs in my WPF application?
Yes, you can host WPF controls in your WinForms applications:
Walkthrough: Hosting a 3-D WPF Composite Control in Windows Forms
Walkthrough: Hosting a Composite WPF Control in Windows Forms
Yep, I've successfully mixed winforms and WPF. I even managed to add WPF windows to win32 apps, changed this app to a dll and used a WPF app to show win32 windows which show WPF windows.
To host WPF windows in WinForm or win32 apps you will need this line befor you .Show() your WpfWindow:
System.Windows.Forms.Integration.ElementHost.EnableModelessKeyboardInterop(myWpfWindow);
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa348549.aspx
You can use the ElementHost control found in the System.Windows.Forms.Integration namespace. You will need a reference to the WindowsFormsIntegration assembly (in WindowsFormsIntegration.dll)
This control is an empty container into which you can put WPF controls e.g.
myElementHost.Child = someWpfControl;
You can find it in your toolbox and drag and drop it onto a winform like any other control;
Can both WPF and Windows forms controls be used within one application? How difficult or practical an idea is this?
It is fairly straightforward to host WPF controls in a WinForms app with an ElementHost adapter or WinForms controls in a WPF app with a WindowsFormsHost adapter. There are not too many resources on the web showing how to do either of these, however. In the process of learning how to do this for myself I quickly discovered the inherent symmetries between the two pathways. I distilled all my notes into an article comparing and contrasting these symmetries using a unique approach: the article is really two side-by-side articles, comparing every step in detail, starting from creating a user control in one technology to hosting it in an application in the "opposite" technology. My article, published on SimpleTalk.com in August 2010 is available here: Mixing WPF and WinForms.
For completeness, here are a couple good MSDN references, one for each pathway. In fact, the demo solution accompanying my article started from both of these:
Hosting a Windows Forms Composite Control in WPF
Hosting a WPF Control in Windows Forms
I believe there is a WindowsFormsHost control you can put in your WPF apps which will do interop back to WinForms code:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ivo_manolov/archive/2007/07/26/wpf-win32-interop-part-1-hosting-winforms-controls-in-wpf-windows.aspx
We hosted significantly complex WPF controls in an existing LOB WinForms app. It can be done, but we did have issues (some no doubt caused by the steep learning curve). These primarily had to do with loss-of-focus events not being fired when expected, and also keyboard navigation issues.
You can also use an HWNDSource and HWNDHost controls to embed WPF controls in a WinForms (or any Win32, really) app.
When hosting non-WPF content (Be it HTML, WinForms, or Win32 content), you will haveAirspace issues. This means you can't completely compost the WPF content with the hosted content. You also can't animate it etc. There are some interesting issues with respect to scrollviewers see here for more details and a fix also.
Yes you can, both Windows Forms within a WPF application, and WPF controls within Windows Forms. www.novamind.com's mind-mapping application is a successful mix of the two technologies.