I have a TabControl containing Prism regions. I want to trigger some kind of notification (e.g. flashing the tab header) for certain events, and I want to trigger this notification from the components in the Prism regions.
Once the tab containing such a component was open once, this works nicely using VisualTreeUtil.GetParent() and going up until I find my TabControl and can modify it to indicate the notification.
But the problem is that this doesn't work until the tab is opened by the user because VisualTreeUtil.GetParent() returns null; obviously because Prism doesn't hook up the visual tree until then.
Calling UpdateLayout() on the TabItem containing the region doesn't help. I don't want to open the TabItems programmatically, because this would confuse the user.
Is there anything I can do short of implementing a kind of region registry (which would be rather ugly and harder to maintain)?
If you want to look at code, I wrote a minimal solution to demonstrate the issue. The Print Structure button tries to go up the visual tree from the (initially unrendered invisible) hello TextBlock on the second tab. Before you switch to the tab it prints only the TextBlock, afterwards you get to the root of the visual tree. This is what I want to accomplish without switching to the tab.
Adding comment as answer:
This probably isn't exactly the answer you are looking for, but it seems like you're taking a very procedural approach.
Have you considered using an MVVM approach? Each TabItem in the TabControl can have a HeaderTemplate. In the template you can bind to a property in the ViewModel that causes the tab to flash or change appearance
Hm.. IIRC Prism regions are just a configured ContentControl/ContentPresenter. Once they are ready to work, all the bindings and datamodels should be in place, but the trees are left not created because they are invisible. If so, you should be able to call ApplyTemplate() on them to force it. I do not remember, however, if the Prism assigns the contenttemplates/datacontexts upon init, or upon demand - the latter may cause calling ApplyTemplate useless.
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My goal is to make an application where, conceptually, everything happens in a single window - a principle most applications I commonly use exhibit, at least for their main interface. Installers are a good example of what I am trying to do, where you basically page through the interface.
You can do this fairly well using a (invisible) tabcontrol. This allows you to design the individual tabpages (which are basically forms as far as controls go) in the designer, and you can manually switch between tabpages, and it all takes place inside the same outer form.
The problem is, this results in code for everything all in the main form. What I want is basically the design capabilities of separate forms (drag-and-drop components, only has code for its own controls), but that can be put inside the tabcontrol to get the intended user interface.
What is the best way to do this? I assume there is a clean solution given how common this is.
Thus far I have followed C# Multiple Screen View Single Form, which works well aside from the fact that all the code ends up in the same class (for example, you need unique names for every single element on the form).
I think you're looking for UserControls. They let you create a "form without a window" if I had to simplify it.
Once you've built the UserControl, you can then drag and drop it into any Form.
You can then replace these controls at runtime as needed.
See this link for a decent starting tutorial. I'll update if I find a better tutorial out there.
http://www.akadia.com/services/dotnet_user_controls.html
Struggling, I need a button to open up a window but below the MainWindow in C#. Like in a website you can open other pages but the master page layout doesn't change only the page you are viewing shows differently.
I need similar thing. I have components (tools i added from toolbox) on my MainWindow.xaml so for example if i click on a button i named new student, a tabbed-window where i can capture student details must appear but it must not be a separate windows it must appear within the mainwindow and seem like a one thing. Forgive for my English. I hope someone will understand me though, thanks in advance. I want to have components/functionality according a specific button click but constant Mainwindow, the one with "File" "Edit" "View" "Help".
There are a couple different solutions to you problem, but Visual Studio doesn't quite have something like the Master View option through ASP .NET with webforms.
Option One
Using TabControl. This option is the easiest solution to your problem. The GUI in Visual studio has support for adding components to each tab, which nothing else has. This is the closest component to something like multi-panels in Java, but it will still create the Tabs, which may not be what you are looking for.
Option Two
Using multiple Panels over one another. With this option, you can add multiple panels to your main window and layer each panel over one another. You can add a button or other control which will hide each panel and all of its contents. This is a great solution if you don't want tabs, but it can be frustrating to create in Visual Studio since you must move each panel away from another in order to add/remove/adjust the components on the underlying panel.
Of course there are still a few more controls you can use to produce the results you are looking for, but these are probably the most applicable solutions to your problem.
I have problems with editing panels in C# windows forms(Visual studio 2008). I placed some panels into another, and now I have problems with navigating panels inside parental containers. Is there any tool that gives not only drag-drop control, but also tree view of container and panels in it. For example, like Navigator window in NetBeans(IDE for Java). Any help?
I'm not sure about VS2008, but newer versions have Document Outline Window (View > Other Windows > Document Outline)
To not get lost in controls, consider to name them properly. Then you can find them in the list of Properties window.
Instead of label1 use labelInputName, located on panel1, which you also rename to panelInput. This gives parent/child feeling and you will never lost.
If you get lost, use Document Outline window to see tree-like relation via Controls property (who is control of who). This window is a helper (help to find and select control), you will still have to use designer to do changes.
Another important thing is UI design. Whenever you get cluttered or bulky feeling, than it's the time to change something.
Making UserControl for repeatable part is one way.
Another is to differ design and run time (what you see in designer): to example, if you have several panels, which has to be shown at same place, then you can use dynamic container for them (FlowLayoutPanel, TableLayoutPanel) or you can have them placed in a way for you to easily see them in design-time, but their position will be corrected during run-time (to example, in the constructor). Prioritizing designing is a must if you are going to support project and edit functionality in next versions.
p.s.: talking about winforms, but all said should be true for wpf as well.
I'm writing a program to implement COM component in C#. This component provides a UI component too. In the interest of making it easy to implement future additions to the component, I decided to write the UI in Xaml using WPF and wrapping it in an ElementHost control to provide the handle back to to the COM consumer.
Here's where this gets interesting. The element is being hosted in a win32 tab control. The first time the tab is selected, it loads fine. Switching to another tab and coming back causes it to not draw the component correctly. If I move the mouse through it, it'll draw the TextBox elements, but it'll never redraw the whole UserComponent.
I've tried every possible solution I've seen suggested, from changing the height/width values of the component to putting the HwndTarget in SoftwareOnly rendering mode.
I'm not sure what to try at this point, so suggestions are welcome. I'd really like to do this without using Windows Forms as the future maintainers of this aren't the best programmers and it's a lot easier to tell them to write up a Xaml file with data bindings than manually lay out a form and set the values in the code-behind.
Haven't met such problem yet.
Try to force refresh or focus (methods) to the hosting wrapper or HwndSource when switching to the hosting tab.
I am new to WPF and am trying to find the right control.
I am coding a WPF app that has two sections. The left side is an Outlook like sidebar (Odyssey controls).
For everything else I want a control that I can easily swap the contents of based on what is in the side bar.
So the user selects an option in the side bar and all the controls in the main section would change.
If I was writing this in Windows Forms I could just create a few Panels and then show the one that is relevant (and hide the others). When I try this in WPF you can see the contents of the panel underneath. I know I could make them not visible, but I am getting the feeling that I may be going about this the wrong way.
So here is the question. What is the best way (in WPF) to handle content sections of the app to change.
Based on your example (switching what is shown based on what is selected in a side panel) I'd recommend restyling a TabControl because that's really tab switching even if it doesn't look like it. Check out this for a decent example, set TabStripPlacement to Left and you will have a good start.
Depending on how your data is set up a Master-Detail pattern might be another good choice.
If you want to switch everything programmatically you'll want to use a ContentPresenter and DataTemplates for the UI "panels". This article by Josh Smith is about MVVM but his example application is basically the pattern you'll be looking for.