WPF Tips & Tricks (January – February 2021)

We hope you are all doing well. Thanks for your continued support and for choosing our WPF product line.

If you’d like more information on the tips & tricks listed below, please submit a comment or create a new support ticket.

TIPS

• Floating panels within the Dock Layout Manager can size themselves to automatically fit content. Use the attached FloatGroup.SizeToContent property to enable this functionality.
• You can display a Select All checkbox for columns bound to Boolean properties: ShowCheckBoxInHeader (see: How to: Display a Check Box within Column Headers). Group rows can also display checkboxes for these columns: GroupRowCheckBoxFieldName.
• The DXSerializer class allows you to control the serialization process when you save and/or restore a layout: How to use the DXSerializer class to control the layout serialization process of DevExpress controls.
• Panels from separate Dock Layout Managers can work together - as if they belong to the same manager. To enable this behavior, simply link these managers via the DockLayoutManagerLinker.Link method.
• To find an element based on a specific condition in the visual or logical tree, use our LayoutTreeHelper class. Its methods return LINQ compatible collections.

TRICKS

• You can filter appointments from our WPF Scheduler control – no need to remove appointments/events from the underlying source. Filter Appointments and Time Regions.
• To automatically generate editors for data item properties, use Data Layout Control. Add Layout Generation Attributes to data item properties if you wish to modify the layout generated by this control.
• Our pre-built behavior classes can help you create theme selectors for your application:
  • BarSubItemThemeSelectorBehavior
  • BarSplitItemThemeSelectorBehavior
  • RibbonGalleryThemeSelectorBehavior
  • RibbonGalleryItemThemePaletteSelectorBehavior

TICKETS

WPF Data Grid

• How to automatically scroll Data Grid / Tree List to display a focused item in the center of the viewport (T970461)
• How to use the IsReadOnly property in CellTemplate (T970323)
• How to show a wait indicator for a row while its data is being processed on the server side (T969413)
  

  A custom element can be displayed within row indicators. Declare a custom DataTemplate in the RowIndicatorContentTemplate property.

• How to show only one card in Card View (T965477)
• How to programmatically select a tab in TabViewDetailDescriptor (T966061)
• How to change the FitColumnHeader and IndicatorColumnHeader background in Data Grid (T966745)
  

  Define the Background property in custom implicit styles:

  
  ...
  <dxg:GridControl.Resources>
      <Style TargetType="dxg:FitColumnHeader">
          <Setter Property="Background" Value="Red" />
      </Style>
  
      <Style TargetType="dxg:IndicatorColumnHeader">
          <Setter Property="Background" Value="Red" />
      </Style>
  </dxg:GridControl.Resources>
  ...
  

• How to focus Search Panel after the Data Grid is loaded (T966754)

WPF Ribbon

• How to open modules in separate windows when MIF is used (T971967)
  

  To open a separate window within a module, use the UIWindowRegion class. Add it to the Application.Resources collection in the App.xaml file:

  <Application ... 
               xmlns:dxmvvm="http://schemas.devexpress.com/winfx/2008/xaml/mvvm" 
               xmlns:dx="http://schemas.devexpress.com/winfx/2008/xaml/core">
      <Application.Resources> 
          <dxmvvm:UIWindowRegion x:Key="WindowsService" RegionName="Windows">
              <dxmvvm:UIWindowRegion.WindowFactory> 
                  <DataTemplate> 
                      <dx:ThemedWindow Width="1000" Height="600" Title="Some info"/>
                  </DataTemplate>
              </dxmvvm:UIWindowRegion.WindowFactory>
          </dxmvvm:UIWindowRegion>
      </Application.Resources> 
  </Application> 
  

  
  Manager.Register("Windows",
      new Module(AppModules.Module1, () => ModuleViewModel.Create("Module1"), typeof(ModuleView))); 
  
  public void Test(){
      ModuleManager.DefaultManager.InjectOrNavigate("Windows", DXApplication34.Common.Modules.Module1);
  } 
  

WPF Editors

• How to prevent the popup from being opened for a read-only ComboBoxEdit (T968954)
  

  Set the ShowPopupIfReadOnly property to False.

• How to use DataAnnotation attributes to format values in editors (T965702)

WPF Property Grid

• How to bind Property Grid to XML data (T969916)

WPF Scheduler

• How to align resource header text horizontally (T961323)

WPF Charting

• How to create custom annotation labels for each argument in a Side-by-side Bar Chart (T968597)
• Crosshair Cursor - How to add custom content below crosshair labels (T969732)

Other controls

• How to change the initial position of CustomNotifications (T969421)
• How to create a mock object for DialogService's extension methods (T965088)
• Buttons lose focus when FocusManager.IsFocusScope is set to "True" in the parent Document Panel (T973918)
• How to change the background of the standard RichTextBox depending on a currently applied theme (T973173)