I'm Getting Cannot set Visibility or call Show, ShowDialog Exception - wpf

I'm using WAF (Wpf Application Framework) to create a dialog as shown in the ModelView sample application. I am trying to put up a simple AboutBox by mirroring the code for putting up the CreateEmailAccountWizard dialog box. My About box shows up fine the first time, but when I call it again from the menu, it gives me the following exception:
Cannot set Visibility or call Show, ShowDialog, or WindowInteropHelper.EnsureHandle after a Window has closed.
First, I don't know what this message means. Second, what am I doing wrong? The sample application doesn't throw this exception when you close and reopen the CreateEmailAccountWizard dialog box. My code is nearly identical to it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Never mind. Found the source of the problem. I was creating a singleton from MEF and it was causing the same dialog instance to run twice. I solved the issue by doing the following:
var shellView = _container.GetExportedValue<IShellView>();
_aboutDialogViewModel = _container.GetExportedValue<AboutDialogViewModel>();
_aboutDialogViewModel.ShowDialog(shellView);
I also had to set the MEF attribute on the class to tell it to not use a singleton:
[Export, PartCreationPolicy(CreationPolicy.NonShared)]
public class AboutDialogViewModel : ViewModel<IDialogView>
{
[ImportingConstructor]
public AboutDialogViewModel(IDialogView view) : base(view)

Related

Intercept Deactivation Strategy of a Closing window?

I'm using the latest version of Caliburn Micro (4.0.173) in an application leveraging IoC.
I do not have a sample project yet has my sandbox is using nugets from Telerik that are not easily findable. But I think a detailed explanation can get the point across:
I have a ProfileEditorViewModel : Conductor<IScreen>.Collection.OneActive resolved by the container (singleton) through the constructor of my ShellViewModel and I use the I use the WindowsManager to open my ProfileEditorViewModel in a different window:
public class ShellViewModel : IShellViewModel{
private readonly IProfileEditorViewModel _profileEditor;
private readonly IWindowManager _windowManager;
public ShellViewModel(IWindowManager windowManager, IProfileEditorViewModel profileEditor){
_windowManager = windowManager;
_profileEditor = profileEditor;
}
//Method triggered by an Action from the View
public void OpenProfileEditor(){
_windowManager.ShowWindowAsync(_profileEditor, null, null);
}
}
When I close the ProfileEditor window (clicking on the top right red cross), it triggers a closing type deactivation, which is coherent with the implementation of a conductor (not being conducted itself) being shutdown. The Screens collection is being wiped and some more cleaning is being done through the Screen.cs implementation of Caliburn.
However, for this application, I'm facing "the view not being unbound" issue (https://github.com/Caliburn-Micro/Caliburn.Micro/issues/361) and next time I open the ProfileEditor, it'll bind a new view (because the Views Collection of my viewmodel was empty) and it create some issue related to UI components used in the view (basically one event from the viewmodel triggers similar actions, on the view(s) side, that all come back to the viewmodel, which create some identification issue)
Reading through the issue 361, I'm currently able to catch the Unloaded event of my ProfileEditor (once closed), and basically clean the DataContext of any view associated to the viewmodel (before Screen cleans the Screens collections). Next time I open the ProfileEditor, it'll bind a new view and it'll be the only one = it works.
However clearing the DataContext may produce some other issue down the road.
What I would like to do, is to avoid clearing the View collection of the ProfileEditorViewModel upon closing. So Caliburn can use this reference the next time it needs to resolve a window/view for the ProfileEditorViewModel (instead of looking for a new one).
Is it possible to intercept the Deactivation / Closing strategy and change the close parameter to false ?
Another solution may be for my ShellView to be a Conductor<>.Collection.AllActive but I can't wrap my head around teh management of a window closing. How to intercept the ProfileEditor windows closing and proceeding with a deactivation of the ProfileEditorViewModel instead of a closing.
I hope it make sense :)
Thank you in advance for your help

Starting a WPF application as hidden

I'm writing a WPF application and want it to start as a hidden window. I've created the Window object and set its Visibility property to Visibility.Hidden before calling Application.Run(). Then, I have an event handler for Window.Loaded that also sets the visibility to Visibility.Hidden. Between the call to Application.Run() and the callback to OnWindowLoaded(), there is a black outline of the window that flashes up on the screen and then disappears. It's like the window manager is creating a drop shadow for the window or something and then hides it immediately.
After running my project through instrumentation, I finally found that Window.Show() was somehow getting called. So, I looked into the source code at http://www.dotnetframework.org/Search.aspx:
Application.Run() ends up calling a private method named Application.RunInternal().
RunInternal() checks the visibility of the Window object that was passed in to the Run() method.
If the Visibility property is not Visibility.Visible, a call to Window.Show() is made.
I then looked at the source for System.Windows.Window:
Window.Show() sets the Visibility property on itself (the window) to be Visibility.Visible.
Based on this, I don't see how to force the window to stay hidden. By trying to make the window invisible at startup, I'm causing the Application object to call Window.Show(); I don't understand why the Application object even cares about the window's visibility. It's been a frustrating experience... :-(
I've seen other answers that say to not call Application.Run() and to instead set up your own event dispatchers, but that seems like overkill for something that should be easy. I just want the main window to stay hidden, for no "flicker" to appear at app startup, and for the window to become visible when I'm ready for it to do so (which happens later in my application logic).
Can anyone offer a suggestion?
Did you remove the StartupUri entry in App.xaml? If you do, the App class won't instantiate the window for you and show it. You can do this by yourself by overwriting the App.OnStartup method.
Basically, I build a composition root in this OnStartup method and just create a window at the end of the process:
protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)
{
base.OnStartup(e);
// Do your custom initialization code here
MainWindow = new MainWindow();
MainWindow.Show();
}
If you really want to omit the whole application build up process (which I wouldn't recommend, as you won't have features like the fallback to Application Resources), you can create a Dispatcher by yourself using this code:
var dispatcher = Dispatcher.CurrentDispatcher;
var synchronizationContext = new DispatcherSynchronizationContext(dispatcher);
SynchronizationContext.SetSynchronizationContext(synchronizationContext);
Dispatcher.Run();
The comment on this Answer finally led me to find the solution to this issue. I needed to display multiple windows on multiple screens at once, and by minimizing the window it gives me the performance I needed. Thanks.

WPF UserControl throws exception in design mode

I'm trying to create a custom control using UserControl. When I drop the custom control on a window, it displays for a second then the designer crashes and I get the messag:
An Exception was thrown
ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: sp
The stack trace shows an error in a call the ServiceProvider constructor.
Any idea what's going on on here? I tried this with a blank UserControl on a blank Window and got the same error.
Thanks for your help.
XAML designer will call the UserControl's constructor when loading in designer.
If in the constructor or UserControl.Loaded is another Method that is not running in the design mode should be skip.
In order to avoid this you can place a if condition as follows in your UserControl constructor
if(DesignerProperties.GetIsInDesignMode(this))
return;
// another Method that Running in RunTime
WPF user control throws design-time exception
After further googling the issue, it seems that this is related to the presence of installshield projects in the solution. If I remove all installshield projects, I don't get the exception anymore.
This is more of a workaround than a solution though...

Dialog Window for configuration in MVVM

i'm relative new to MVVM. My current problem is a modular dialog which should "autostart" at the beginning.
I've followed the example of WAFs Email Client for modular dialogs. Is it right that the only important thing is to set the Owner Property of the dialog to the instance of the main window of the application (and of course show the window with ShowDialog() instead of Show()?
If you close this dialog without configuration the application will shutdown. But now, if I open the main window in visual studios designer mode the configuration dialog comes up and if I close it visual studio crashes.
This is because I call the ShowDialog() of the configuration dialog in the constructor of my main windows view model.
To avoid this i can check for DesignerProperties.IsInDesignTool Property, but this is more a workaround as good code style, right?
Do you have any suggestions? Thanks.
The problem here is that you are showing a dialog in the constructor of a class. That's something you don't want to do.
I would solve it like this:
Don't specify a StartupUri in your app.xaml but override OnStartup. There you check whether the configuration dialog should be shown or not. If it should be shown, show it and after it has closed with OK, show you main window.
Something like this:
override void OnStartup(...)
{
if(configurationNotComplete)
{
ConfigDialog cfg = new ConfigDialog();
if(!(cfg.ShowDialog() ?? false))
{
Shutdown();
return;
}
}
MainWindow window = new MainWindow();
window.Show();
}
You have another problem with your current approach: Your ViewModel shows a modal dialog. This means it knows at least about one View: That of the modal dialog. MVVM is one way: The View knows about the ViewModel, the ViewModel knows about the Model. There should be no connection in the other direction.

The whole wpf application is blocked after i call Show() for new window

I am developing a WPF-application using mvvm pattern. And a strange problem occurred to me.
There is a form, which contains a devexpress DXGrid control. There is a command binded to double click gesture in presenter. When the command triggers a new window is created and shown through factory class(the Show() method is used).
So, it happens from time to time that the whole application(all application windows) is blocked when this window is shown. This lockup disappears after i focus any other application.
For the first time this problem occurred after updating devexpress version. Then this problem occurred any time new window was shown after double click on grid row. The problem was partially fixed by setting new window`s Owner property.
Now this problem occurs from time to time. It seems as if threads are involved here, but i dont understand how. =(
p.s.:
there is one more strange thing, when new window is shown and no lockup-problem occurred, the first window is still focused and i have to click on newly shown window before i can use any controls, placed on it.
I have tried:
set ShowActivated property
call Activate() after Show()
newform.Dispatcher.CheckAccess() to
determine which thread calls Show()
method
check newform.IsActive property after
show (value = true)
Could you tell me how to fix, please?
Thank you.
Well to fix the issue of first window being focused rather than the newly shown window, you need to do the following, after calling the show method for the new window:
Mouse.Capture(null);
Hopefully the issue would be resolved.

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