While working in Windows you have seen that, while focusing on any TextBox the entire text inside it has been selected. This is a default behaviour of Windows, but in WPF this behaviour is not present. For this you have to write code.

If you want to add the same behaviour in your WPF application then you have to register the TextBox.GotFocus event for each textbox inside your Window and in that event implementation you have to write the code to select all the text inside the focused TextBox, right? If you do like this, then you have to write so many event registration for each one of the TextBox.

 

 

Lets say, you have a single Window with 100 TextBoxs in it. In this case though you can write the event definition inside a single implementation but you have to register the event for 100 times. Now imagine the same behaviour for 10 Windows inside the same application. Here you have to write the event implementation for each and every Window & register the event for each TextBox. This will definately clutter your code.

So, how can you get the said behaviour in your WPF application? It is a simple trick inside your App.xaml.cs file. This will be a global event handler for any TextBox in your application. If you open your App.xaml.cs you will find a overridable method named "OnStartUp". Inside this register the TextBox.GotFocus event for every TextBox before calling the OnStartup method for the base class. After doing this trick, your OnStartup method will look like this:

 

 

protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)
{
    EventManager.RegisterClassHandler(typeof(TextBox), TextBox.GotFocusEvent, new RoutedEventHandler(TextBox_GotFocus));
    base.OnStartup(e);
}

Here, the EventManager class will be responsible to register the event handler for all TextBox. So simple right? Now add the event handler implementation for the TextBox in the same class. This will look like this:
private void TextBox_GotFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    TextBox tb = sender as TextBox;
    tb.Focus();
    tb.SelectAll();
}  
             
Now run your application with multiple Windows having multiple TextBox on them. Focus on any TextBox having some texts inside it. You will see the same behaviour has been added to all of your TextBox.
Published by on under Tips | WPF
MoXAML is an AddIn for Visual Studio to make your coding more productive for WPF and Silverlight Applications. By using this great power toy, you can code without giving more efforts. It has lots of features like beautifying the XAML code, Keyword Lookup, better comment support for XAML, automated Dependency Property creation and more.

You can also explore the features of XAML Power Toys. This will give you a extended power to design your XAML. This is really a good AddIn not only for the designers but also for the developers. You can create your ViewModel class, create ListView or Form for selected class, extract properties to style, option to generate x:Name for controls, grouping controls inside GroupBox and lots of other goodies. Check out the site for the latest features.

Mole is a tool that integrates with Visual Studio which lets you inspect the Visual Tree of your application, view and edit properties or data, view the XAML for selected elements and more. It allows unlimited drilling to objects and sub objects.

Snoop is a tool which you can use to hook to your running WPF application and browse the Visual Tree of the application. You can also inspect and edit the properties, inspect routed events and magnify sections in the UI and also debug binding errors.

Crack.Net is a runtime debugging tool for .Net desktop applications (both WPF & WinForms) just like Mole & Snoop. It allows you to go thru the managed heap of another .Net application, view all kinds of values on different objects and also manipulate them easily. You can also read the Crack.Net article.
Published by on under .Net | Silverlight
Microsoft released Silverlight 3 on 10th July 2009 as per the schedule. You can download the SDK, Visual Studio Tools & Blend from the following location:
Silverlight 3 came with the following features:
  • Out of Browser support
  • Network status check
  • Pixel Shader Effects
  • Bitmap APIs
  • Runtime themeing support
  • Enhanced control skinning
  • Support for System Colors
  • Bitmap Caching
  • Perspective 3D view
  • GPU hardware acceleration
  • Text animation
  • H.264 support
  • RAW audio/video support
  • Save File Dialogue
  • Wrap Panel, View Box, Dock Panel
  • Support for local fonts
  • Binary XML
  • Component caching & Scene caching
Published by on under .Net | Silverlight