Develop Reference

Why does a folder dialog immediately close unless a window is displayed in WPF?

I'm developing a WPF application that's meant to live in the tool tray, so it doesn't involve any windows. Right-clicking the tool tray icon brings up a menu with a Configure Report Path... option, and I'd like to display a folder browser dialog to the user when this is clicked:
What I'm finding is that when the option is selected, a dialog opens and immediately closes unless I assign some window to Application.Current.MainWindow and show it before opening the dialog. This is the code I'm using:
public CounterIconViewModel(IMessenger messenger)
{
void ConfigureReportPath()
{
// Application window must be created and displayed.
Application.Current.MainWindow = new Window();
Application.Current.MainWindow.Show();
var browseDialog = new VistaFolderBrowserDialog { ShowNewFolderButton = false };
if (browseDialog.ShowDialog() != true)
{
return;
}
// (Separate issue) Command doesn't execute unless I comment out the line below.
//messenger.Send(browseDialog.SelectedPath, "ReportPath");
}
ConfigureReportPathCommand = new RelayCommand(ConfigureReportPath);
ExitApplicationCommand = new RelayCommand(Application.Current.Shutdown);
}
In this case I'm using VistaFolderBrowserDialog from Ookii.Dialogs.Wpf, but I've tried the same thing with another WPF browser dialog and notice identical behaviour.
Is there a reason why a browser dialog seems to require a window to be displayed to remain open, and any workarounds?
Update
I've found that if I initialize and pass an instance of Window to browseDialog.ShowDialog, the dialog remains open without me having to assign the main application window and display it:
if (browseDialog.ShowDialog(new Window()) != true)
I don't understand why this works. I'll post this as an answer if no others appear so that at least people in a similar situation are aware of this workaround.
Update 2
The other dialog I tested it with was CommonOpenFileDialog from Microsoft.WindowsApiCodePack-Shell:
var browseDialog = new CommonOpenFileDialog { IsFolderPicker = true };
browseDialog.ShowDialog();
My tool tray icon displays a rich tool-tip (a custom UserControl) if I hover over it, and with this browser dialog I found that:
If I hover over the icon to make the tool-tip display, then the browser dialog works fine when I try to open it on the first and every subsequent attempt.
If I try to open the browser dialog before displaying the tool-tip display, the browser dialog opens and closes immediately on the first try, but then remains open on every subsequent attempt.
This dialog also accepts a Window instance in ShowDialog but it makes no difference if I pass one or not.
My workaround (initializing and passing a blank window to the Ookli dialog browser) seems to work fine regardless of whether I first bring up the tool-tip, so I'm sticking with that for the time being.

Hiding browser popups - Watin

I'm using Watin library in a windows forms app. In order to hide the browser I use this instruction :
Settings.Instance.MakeNewIeInstanceVisible = false;
However, it doesn't hide the popups (when simulating a click on an element that opens a popup).
Is there a way to hide them?

You can do it programmatically by running some javascript code and make window.open function to do nothing!
Example
Here is a test page I made that has a very simple form and when the user clicks the Sum button, it sums up numA + numB and it displays the result inside a <span id="result"></span> element. After the result text update, it opens a popup window by calling window.open. In order to make this popup window disappear, we need to eliminate the window.open function:
window['open'] = function() { return false; }
To do that using Watin, we have to use the Eval function and inject the javascript code like this:
browser.Eval("window['open'] = function() { return false; }");
Then all popups are gone for that page load only and we have the wanted result.
Sample C# code
private void buttonPopupdEnabled_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
WatiN.Core.Settings.Instance.MakeNewIeInstanceVisible = false;
IE ie = new IE();
ie.GoTo("http://zikro.gr/dbg/html/watin-disable-popups/");
ie.Eval("window['open'] = function() { return false; }");
ie.TextField(Find.ById("numA")).TypeText("15");
ie.TextField(Find.ById("numB")).TypeText("21");
ie.Button(Find.ById("sum")).Click();
string result = ie.Span(Find.ById("result")).Text;
ie.Close();
labelResult.Text = String.Format("The result is {0}", result);
}
Program running before javascript injection (Popup shows up)
Program running after javascript injection (Popup is gone)

I've checked released notes and found this:
By default WatiN tests make the created Internet Explorer instances
visible to the user. You can run your test invisible by changing the
following setting. Be aware that HTMLDialogs and any popup windows
will be shown even if you set this setting to false (this is default
behavior of Internet Explorer which currently can't be suppressed).
IE.Settings.MakeNewIeInstanceVisible = false; // default is true
Since WatIN haven't updated since 2011, I think you wouldn't expect any new feature support what you want.
I don't know if this could be a workaround but If those popups are not important to you why just don't block all popups?
How to turn off popup blocker through code in Watin?
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_WEBOC_POPUPMANAGEMENT
Value = 0 for Off
Value = 1 for On

Selenium WebDriver new tab and Navigate

Based on this post, I managed to open a new tab, but when I try to navigate in the new tab, the navigation occurs in the old tab.
I saw that I should use this:
driver.switchTo().window(windowName);
but what is windowName?

You have to use window handle function here. You asked for a solution in c#. I used java with selenium webdriver. They both would use similar concepts.
Here is a sample working code in java:
String parentHandle = driver.getWindowHandle(); // get the current window handle
System.out.println(parentHandle); //Prints the parent window handle
String anchorURL = anchor.getAttribute("href"); //Assuming u are clicking on a link which opens a new browser window
anchor.click(); //Clicking on this window
for (String winHandle : driver.getWindowHandles()) { //Gets the new window handle
System.out.println(winHandle);
driver.switchTo().window(winHandle); // switch focus of WebDriver to the next found window handle (that's your newly opened window)
}
//Now your driver works on the current new handle
//Do some work here.....
//Time to go back to parent window
driver.close(); // close newly opened window when done with it
driver.switchTo().window(parentHandle); // switch back to the original window
Hope this helps!

WPF window should be modal to native owner window, but isn't

I have the following C# code in a WPF project:
private static void RunConfig(string owner)
{
long ownerHandle;
var settingsWindow = new SettingsWindow();
if (long.TryParse(owner, out ownerHandle))
{
WindowInteropHelper helper = new WindowInteropHelper(settingsWindow);
helper.Owner = new IntPtr(ownerHandle);
}
settingsWindow.ShowDialog();
}
The SettingsWindow isn't properly modal to the owner window (i.e. I can focus on, interact with, and even close the owner window while the SettingsWindow is still open). What am I doing wrong?
For context, this code is part of a screen saver program, and the owner window is the Control Panel screen saver selection window (which passes in the handle to use as owner via command line parameter). I know the IF statement is evaluating true and correctly parsing the handle.
I have also tried using the SetWindowLongPtr method from user32.dll (compiling for x64, hence not using SetWindowLong) which is briefly described here and shown in use here. This method works in WinForms, but doesn't seem to work here in WPF. Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.

It turns out that using WindowInteropHelper to set the native window as owner of the WPF Window does work, it just doesn't do the whole job. When set this way, the WPF Window will remain visible on top of the native window, even if the native window has focus. However, that is the only effect obtained. The WPF Window does not prevent interaction with the native Window, and the native window can even be closed, without the WPF Window closing or being affected.
In order to get the rest of the desired behaviour, we need to use the EnableWindow function in user32.dll to disable the native Window before calling ShowDialog on the WPF Window, and again to re-enable it once the WPF Window closes.
The modified code looks like this:
private static void RunConfig(string owner)
{
long ownerHandle;
var settingsForm = new SettingsWindow();
if (long.TryParse(owner, out ownerHandle))
{
WindowInteropHelper helper = new WindowInteropHelper(settingsForm);
helper.Owner = new IntPtr(ownerHandle);
NativeMethods.EnableWindow(helper.Owner, false);
settingsForm.ShowDialog();
NativeMethods.EnableWindow(helper.Owner, true);
}
else
{
settingsForm.ShowDialog();
}
}
(Note: The above code is correct in general, but incomplete in the case of screen savers, which is what this code is actually being used for. In the case that this code is being used for the config window of a screen saver, the string passed in for the owner handle is not the handle of the Control Panel window to be used as owner, but rather a handle for a control that is a child of the Control Panel window. The extra step in this case is to get the handle of the parent of that control. We can do this by calling GetParent, also in user32.dll, on the passed-in handle. This will return the real handle we want to use for the owner and EnableWindow calls.)
If anyone from Microsoft ever finds this, maybe consider modifying WindowInteropHelper to properly set all of this up when Owner is assigned and ShowDialog used, since this is the proper complete behavior for modal windows.

WebDriver + swtichTo another browser

I have seen umpteen posts talking about working with pop window using window handle.
But how to work with a browser which is opened when clicked on a button -
<button class="power_buy_now_button" type="button">
</button>
I tried to get window handle but each time I encounter a changing string, some thing like - "8c5f028e-e7cc-4d0f-afe4-983bb119391e"
There is not even title associated with new browser. More over I am not sure how I would use title to bring control to new browser. And then at some point I would have to bring control back to first browser.

Your best bet is to do something like the following:
// This code assumes you start with only one browser window in your test.
// If you have more than one browser window, your code will be more complex.
string originalHandle = driver.GetWindowHandle();
driver.FindElement(By.ClassName("power_buy_now_button")).Click();
// May need to wait for window handles collection to have a .Count of 2,
// as clicks are asynchronous.
string popupHandle = string.Empty;
ReadOnlyCollection<string> windowHandles = driver.GetWindowHandles();
foreach (string handle in windowHandles)
{
if (handle != originalHandle)
{
popupHandle = handle;
break;
}
}
driver.SwitchTo().Window(popupHandle);
// Do stuff in the popup window, eventually closing it with driver.Close()
driver.SwitchTo().Window(originalHandle);

I ended up in picking second handle and click on that. This approach works and I hope I would be able to get control back to main window also.