I have an existing WinForms application for which I'm now designing new bits in WPF. Things are going reasonably well and I have run into my first need for a dialog.
I'd like to do the dialog in WPF. It appears as though I'm going to need to do a UserControl for the actual content and then host that content via a WinForms form with an ElementHost (since UserControl has no ShowDialog() method).
And that's where my question is. How does that work? Best I can tell, the WPF UserControl doesn't even have a DialogResult property (which makes sense given that it has no ShowDialog() method) - it looks to me like I'd need a WPF Window control - and I don't think I can use that in this case.
Struggling with the basic flow and setup of things here. Can someone shine a light?
Is this even possible?
You can open a WPF window from a WinForms application.
Just create the window and call ShowDialog(). The CLR will load the WPF framework and open the window.
If you want your interop application to work mostly like a WinForms app, then the approach you describe works fine -- I've pretty much the same thing in my interop cases.
WPF supports MessageBoxes (albeit a slightly different version than WinForms), and you could put something together using WPF Windows (extending it by adding something similar to DialogResult). However, the provided WPF controls suggest that they're trying to change UX interactions to minimize dialogs, particularly modal ones.
To make your life easier though, I would create a WinForms Form/ElementHost subclass specifically for dealing w/hosting WPF content, and depending on how clean you like your "using" declarations, wrapping your own DialogResult-like enumeration so you don't have to include the System.Windows.Forms namespace which can make your WPF code-behinds more cumbersome.
Related
I am new to WPF and I am facing a problem here. In one of our application, few dialogs responsible for similar kind of work. All dialogs have OK and APPLY buttons. But in our new UI Design, these will be displayed on a side bar which is a panel(Yet to decide control). I thought of having a Base Usercontrol which will have OK and APPLY button with few methods. And my other dialogs(which are Usercontrols now in new UI) are derived from this Base User Control.
I downloaded few code samples from internet, but problem didn't solve.
If you have any idea/code sample please share.
Thanks in advance.
WPF (also WinForm to some extent) doesn't play well with inheritance. You could create the UI in C# code and get inheritance working but I don't think designer play well so you'll be stuck in design mode and in Blend.
To work around it you could create piece of functionality that you want to reuse and use composition instead of inheritance, which is considered a better approach anyway.
Is it possible to create a WPF control in C++/CLI, like in WinForms? If so, is there a sample/doc somewhere going through the process, since there is no such project type in vs2010.
Thanks
Yes, it's possible, but you will have to write code to create all your subcontrols and set their properties, because C++/CLI and XAML don't work together. It's very similar to writing a WinForms UI without the aid of the Forms Designer.
Start just by subclassing one of the WPF controls, perhaps Panel.
Which technology (WPF or Winforms) should be used if UI supposed to be highly customizable like controls layout/design could be change by user and such sort of UI customization.
Kindly mention best practices along to achieve that...
I just recently developed a designer in both WinForms (company req) and WPF (to see how much better it was). WPF has a definate edge, especially when it comes to nicer looking controls and control transparency.
This was my first actual WPF project, other than just messing around, so I was learning as I went. I found this series on creating a diagram designer very helpful. I didn't really do the same things that this article talks about, but more of a hybrid between that and my WinForms app.
I have to admit that the UI functionality was up and running much faster in the WPF version than with the WinForms version.
WPF I have found the easiest to create controls on a fly. Because I can just attach them as child controls to the parent, and the Grids, Dock Panels, just make life easier.
I found WinForms to be clunky to always work with. However I come from a Web background and Xaml makes sense to me.
WPF controls are design and lookless. That means you have a default view of them, but everything detail of a WPF control can be overridden. It's almost akin to using CSS. In the WPF world, you do not create custom controls like you do in WinForms. The main thing in WPF world is "styling" controls and defining a style for them. It just happens that the style also controls the layout and the form of the controls.
WPF is FAR superior for designing and style of UI. Check out these two top WPF companies and tell me if this stuff is easy to do in WinForms:
Cynergy Systems: http://www.cynergysystems.com/
Thirteen23: http://www.thirteen23.com/
Is there a way to host a WPF window inside another WPF window. I have a couple of somewhat complex forms in place. But now to simplify things I am trying to merge a few of them as tabpages inside one 'Dashboard' form.
Please note that I am not trying to host a Windows Form, but another WPF window
If you want tabpages, why not use a TabControl with UserControls inside ? If you need to transform one of these tabs to a floating window, just put the UserControl in a new Window...
Can I answer this question with another question; why would you not create them as controls rather than other WPF windows, that you want to host in the main WPF window?
a bit late on this, but I guess with WindowsForms interop you can put in WPF a WinForms control host and in that host put a WinForms control that hosts the handle of a WPF window
I think what you're asking for is MDI, Multiple Document Interface. Something like this might help.
Do note, however, that the MDI paradigm is largely shunned these days. There are usually better ways to achieve the same functionality.
I think you want to hosting contents of WPF Window1.xaml (page1.xaml) inside within another WPF Window.
Well...you can use Navigation. Instead running window1.xaml contents inside tab then you can work with your data inside Navigation. Navigation can run within WPF Window Application. You just design your form / UI in page1.xaml.
one another..MDI old and rusty. We want clear of top window nowadays.
I am trying to find out if an EXE is a WPF app or a WinForms app. Any suggestions on how I can go about this?
I have heard that I could use the Reflector tool, if so how would this be done?
Thanks.
Although generally an application can be classed as 'either' a WPF or WinForms application, interoperability is possible such that a WinForms app can 'host' WPF controls and vice-versa. Since your application sounds like it references both sets of assemblies, it could be using both. Just something to be aware of.
Anyway, I've just opened one of my WPF projects in Reflector and some obvious indications it's a WPF application are:
1) There is an App class that has a StartupUri which is a Xaml file (like this)
public class App : System.Windows.Application
{
// Methods
[DebuggerNonUserCode]
public void InitializeComponent()
{
base.StartupUri = new Uri("Window1.xaml", UriKind.Relative);
}
2) There is a XamlGeneratedNamespace in the EXE
3) In the Resources 'folder' there are .baml files (probably within <Application1>.g.resources).
4) The window classes (if you can find them easily in the Reflector tree) implement:
public class Window1 : System.Windows.Window
, System.Windows.Markup.IComponentConnector {
If you really want to trawl through Reflector in detail, WinForms windows will inherit from System.Windows.Forms.Form so you can easily spot if you have both WinForms and WPF in there.
You can check the .exe with code, you do not need Reflector.
Simply find a type in the .exe assembly which inherits from the System.Windows.Application class which is from the PresentationFramework dll (you can do it with reflection).
Now, this isn't a 100% sure method, since theoretically someone could be creating a class which inherits from the wpf Application class, and then not start the app. The definite way is to check in Reflector if that class' Run() method is called.
And the programmatic way to check if the current application in which your code is running is a wpf app is like this:
public static bool IsWpfApplication
{
get { return System.Windows.Application.Current != null; }
}
Open it with reflector and see whether it references one of the PresentationFramework DLLs (then it's likely WPF) or System.Windows.Forms.dll. Note that applications might reference both - in that case, you can't really tell.
Maybe it's easier just from looking at the application. WPF applications are rendered smoother, even with standard controls.
Generally one dead give away is that WPF applications tend to have a different looking focus rectangle on focused items such as buttons or listboxes. The standard Windows focus rectangle is 1px wide and on WPF apps it seems to just look... different.
Also, WPF apps render most elements to memory bitmaps whenever they need to perform some kind of animation and this results in a "fuzzy", almost anitaliased look whenever the particular animation takes place and is displayed onscreen. This effect is noticed in things like, menu highlights, scrolling or general button text after you click.