I have an MVVM setup with a mainwindow that contains a ContentControl.
I set this to a particular viewmodel which then maps to a view.
A view is a usercontrol.
I want to be able to set the default keyboard focus to a default element in the usercontrol(View) when it loads so the application can eventually be driven just by using up, down, left, right and enter.
Some of my failed attempts are setting
FocusManager.FocusedElement="{Binding ElementName=DefaultElement}"
in my content control tag. This sets the logical focus but not the keyboard focus
I'd rather keep the solution in xaml if possable but have tried placing the following in code behind.
Keyboard.Focus(DefaultElement);
This does not work but if I popup a message box first it does. I'm a little confused as to why.
MessageBox.Show(Keyboard.FocusedElement.ToString());
Keyboard.Focus(DefaultElement);
EDIT::::
I just placed this in my onloaded event of my user control. It seems to work but can anyone see any issues that might arrise at this priority level. I.E a circumstance when the action will never run?
Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(
DispatcherPriority.ContextIdle,
new Action(delegate()
{
Keyboard.Focus(DefaultElement);
}));
It seems that this wpf the you have to implement a workaround on a case by case basis. The solution that seemed to work best, most of the time for me was to insert the focus code inside the dispatcher when OnVisible was changed. This sets the focus not only when the View/Usercontrol loads but also if you a changing Views by way of Visibility. If you Hide and then Show a ContentControl that is mapped to your ViewModels then the Loaded event won't fire and you'll be forced to Mouse input, or tabbing (Not so good if you want to navigate your app with a remote control).
VisibilityChanged will always fire however. This is what I ended up with for my listbox.
private void ItemsFlowListBox_IsVisibleChanged(object sender, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
if ((bool)e.NewValue == true)
{
Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(
DispatcherPriority.ContextIdle,
new Action(delegate()
{
ItemsFlowListBox.Focus();
ItemsFlowListBox.ScrollIntoView(ItemsFlowListBox.SelectedItem);
}));
}
}
I had the same symptom for a WPF UserControl hosted in a Winforms application. Just wanted to note I was about to try this solution when I found a normal TabIndex in the Winforms app fixed it
Per How to set which control gets the focus on application start
"The one with the minimum tab index automatically gets the focus
(assuming the TabStop property is set to true). Just set the tab
indices appropriately."
It's a tricky one with no easy answer. I'm currently doing this, although I'm not sure I like it:
public MyView()
{
InitializeComponent();
// When DataContext changes hook the txtName.TextChanged event so we can give it initial focus
DataContextChanged +=
(sender, args) =>
{
txtName.TextChanged += OnTxtNameOnTextChanged;
};
}
private void OnTxtNameOnTextChanged(object o, TextChangedEventArgs eventArgs)
{
// Setting focus will select all text in the TextBox due to the global class handler on TextBox
txtName.Focus();
// Now unhook the event handler, since it's no longer required
txtName.TextChanged -= OnTxtNameOnTextChanged;
}
And in case you're wondering what the global class handler does, it's this:
protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)
{
...
// Register a global handler for this app-domain to select all text in a textBox when
// the textBox receives keyboard focus.
EventManager.RegisterClassHandler(
typeof (TextBox), UIElement.GotKeyboardFocusEvent,
new RoutedEventHandler((sender, args) => ((TextBox) sender).SelectAll()));
which auto selects TextBox text when receiving keyboard focus.
If we have
<ScrollViewer Name="scroll_viewer" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch">
<Canvas Name="canvas" Height="200" Width="200">
<Rectangle Fill="AliceBlue" Width="100" Height="100"/>
</Canvas>
</ScrollViewer>
with handlers for:
scroll_viewer.PreviewMouseLeftButtonDown
scroll_viewer.MouseLeftButtonDown
canvas.PreviewMouseLeftButtonDown
Then if we click in the Rectangle we get scroll_viewer_PreviewMouseLeftButtonDown called first then canvas_PreviewMouseLeftButtonDown but scroll_viewer_MouseLeftButtonDown is not called.
I want to handle the click event first in the canvas - if an object is clicked I want to handled the event (for object drag). If no canvas object is clicked I want to handle event in scroll_viewer (to manage scrollview panning with the mouse).
How to manage this given that the call order is the oposite of what i want and that the non perview version scroll_viewer.MouseLeftButtonDown is not called?
UPDATE:
From this post: Silverlight forums
((FrameworkElement)scroll_viewer.GetValue(ScrollViewer.ContentProperty)).MouseLeftButtonDown += scroll_viewer_MouseLeftButtonDown;
DOES work ie does get called after the preview events - can some explain why this less than obvious syntax is required?
The problem is that the ScrollViewer already handles the MouseLeftButtonDown event internally, like so:
protected override void OnMouseLeftButtonDown(MouseButtonEventArgs e) {
if (base.Focus())
e.Handled = true;
base.OnMouseLeftButtonDown(e);
}
You can "fix" this using a custom class, like so:
public class MyScrollViewer : ScrollViewer {
protected override void OnMouseLeftButtonDown(MouseButtonEventArgs e) {
base.OnMouseLeftButtonDown(e);
e.Handled = false;
}
}
SIDE NOTE: You should use x:Name in XAML, not Name. Otherwise you may run into compilation errors using the above class.
Alternatively, you could attach your handler for all MouseLeftButtonDown events, including handled ones. So instead of:
this.scroll_viewer.MouseLeftButtonDown += new MouseButtonEventHandler(scroll_viewer_MouseLeftButtonDown);
You'd use:
this.scroll_viewer.AddHandler(ScrollViewer.MouseLeftButtonDownEvent, new MouseButtonEventHandler(this.scroll_viewer_MouseLeftButtonDown), true);
The Preview events follow a routing strategy similar to the Tunneling strategy, meaning that the event starts at the top of the element tree, and travels down it. So it would hit your ScrollViewer first, then your Canvas.
The non-Preview events follow a routing strategy similar to the Bubbling strategy, meaning that events start on the object they occurred on, and travel up the element tree. In this case, the Canvas would get hit first, then the ScrollViewer.
You can read more about the Routing strategies here
As a side note, for Canvas objects to be visible for HitTest events, they need to have a non-transparent background. So if you have a Canvas with no background color specified, it will default to Transparent and not be visible for HitTests.
I have a custom class (ItemsContainer) which contains a few buttons & UserControls.
I'm implementing a navigation system using mouse & inputs, and the user can 'pan' using right-click... but unless the user clicks something interactive (button, etc), my methods for 'mousewheel' and 'keydown' aren't called.
The best article I found so far said I needed to 'hook' myself in every control !! It sounds silly to parse every single visual node and add EventHandlers everywhere... there must be an easier way.
Is there?
There are a couple of items embedded in this question that need addressed.
First is that a RoutedEvent will propagate outwards and up the visual tree. Therefore if you have embedded controls within controls such as this...
<Grid Name="MyGrid">
<StackPanel>
<Button>Button 1</Button>
<Button>Button 2</Button>
<Button>
<TextBlock>Button 3</TextBlock>
</Button>
</StackPanel>
</Grid>
...attaching an event to handle KeyDown behavior on MyGrid; will receive any KeyDown RoutedEvent from within its children.
There is one caveat in that if the event is marked handled by a control within the visual tree, which would be the case for the Button control and the MouseLeftButtonDown RoutedEvent; you would then need to adjust how you register. This is simple enough and can be done like this; where true is stating you want to be notifed even if another handler marked the event handled.
public Window1()
{
InitializeComponent();
MyGrid.AddHandler(UIElement.MouseLeftButtonDownEvent, new RoutedEventHandler(MouseLeftButtonDown), true);
}
private void MouseLeftButtonDown(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
Console.WriteLine("MouseLeftButtonDown Fired");
}
If you were to step through with the debugger you will see that the source of the RoutedEvent when you click on the text Button 3 is indeed the TextBlock.
This will address your need to hook into varying controls; since you can leverage the varying RoutedEvents.
Focus still must exist somewhere within the application however; that can be easily set via the parent control and calling Focus.
I have a ListBox with an ItemTemplate that contains a control that interacts with the mouse. This interfers with the selection functionality of the ListBox, i.e. clicking a control does not select the item. This is because ListBoxItem sets the Handled property of the mouse event to true in OnMouseLeftButtonDown. I tried the following
protected override void OnMouseLeftButtonDown(MouseButtonEventArgs e) {
base.OnMouseLeftButtonDown(e);
e.Handled = false;
}
but the ListBoxItem “takes over” the mouse and prevents the control from doing its own interaction. Then I had another idea
protected override void OnMouseLeftButtonDown(MouseButtonEventArgs e) {
base.OnMouseLeftButtonDown(e);
((ListBoxItem)VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(this)))).IsSelected = true;
}
which actually works, but feels more like an ugly kludge than an elegant solution. Are there any better solutions that don't rely on the exact contents of the visual tree?
I've found a way that is less of a kludge:
protected override void OnMouseLeftButtonDown(MouseButtonEventArgs e) {
base.OnMouseLeftButtonDown(e);
Selector.SetIsSelected(this, true);
}
For this to have any effect, the control in the ListBox' ItemTemplate needs the following XAML attribute:
Selector.IsSelected="{Binding IsSelected, Mode=OneWayToSource, RelativeSource={RelativeSource AncestorType={x:Type ListBoxItem}}}"
It raises two new questions:
Would it be better to define my own dependency property rather than finding an attached one that isn't currently in use?
Is there a way to achieve something similar in markup only?
I believe the MouseLeftButtonDown is a tunnelling event: you could try using PreviewMouseLeftButtonDown, doing your processing there, then ensuring e.Handled = false; as you tried already - that should do the trick!
Hope that helps.
Here is one simple solution, but unfortunately handler can be attached only in code, not in markup.
Event handler can be added by using handledEventsToo signature of AddHandler method:
myListBox.AddHandler(UIElement.MouseDownEvent,
new MouseButtonEventHandler(ListBox_MouseDown), true);
Third parameter above is handledEventsToo which ensures that this handler will be invoked no matter if it is already marked as Handled (which ListBoxItem does in ListBox).
See Marking Routed Events as Handled, and Class Handling for explanation.
See How to Attach to MouseDown Event on ListBox for example.
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.