Set focus on TextBox in WPF from view model

Question

I have a TextBox and a Button in my view.

Now I am checking a condition upon button click and if the condition turns out to be false, displaying the message to the user, and then I have to set the cursor to the TextBox control.

if (companyref == null)
{
    var cs = new Lipper.Nelson.AdminClient.Main.Views.ContactPanels.CompanyAssociation(); 

    MessageBox.Show("Company does not exist.", "Error", MessageBoxButton.OK,
                    MessageBoxImage.Exclamation);

    cs.txtCompanyID.Focusable = true;

    System.Windows.Input.Keyboard.Focus(cs.txtCompanyID);
}

The above code is in the ViewModel.

The CompanyAssociation is the view name.

But the cursor is not getting set in the TextBox.

The xaml is:

<igEditors:XamTextEditor Name="txtCompanyID" 
                         KeyDown="xamTextEditorAllowOnlyNumeric_KeyDown"
                         ValueChanged="txtCompanyID_ValueChanged"
                         Text="{Binding Company.CompanyId,
                                        Mode=TwoWay,
                                        UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}"
                         Width="{Binding ActualWidth, ElementName=border}"
                         Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="0"
                         VerticalAlignment="Top"
                         HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"
                         Margin="0,5,0,0"
                         IsEnabled="{Binding Path=IsEditable}"/>

<Button Template="{StaticResource buttonTemp1}"
        Command="{Binding ContactCommand}"
        CommandParameter="searchCompany"
        Content="Search"
        Width="80"
        Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="2"
        VerticalAlignment="Top"
        Margin="0"
        HorizontalAlignment="Left"
        IsEnabled="{Binding Path=IsEditable}"/>

Answer 1

None of these worked for me exactly, but for the benefit of others, this is what I ended up writing based on some of the code already provided here.

Usage would be as follows:

<TextBox ... h:FocusBehavior.IsFocused="True"/>

And the implementation would be as follows:

/// <summary>
/// Behavior allowing to put focus on element from the view model in a MVVM implementation.
/// </summary>
public static class FocusBehavior
{
    #region Dependency Properties
    /// <summary>
    /// <c>IsFocused</c> dependency property.
    /// </summary>
    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsFocusedProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("IsFocused", typeof(bool?),
            typeof(FocusBehavior), new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(IsFocusedChanged));
    /// <summary>
    /// Gets the <c>IsFocused</c> property value.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="element">The element.</param>
    /// <returns>Value of the <c>IsFocused</c> property or <c>null</c> if not set.</returns>
    public static bool? GetIsFocused(DependencyObject element)
    {
        if (element == null)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("element");
        }
        return (bool?)element.GetValue(IsFocusedProperty);
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// Sets the <c>IsFocused</c> property value.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="element">The element.</param>
    /// <param name="value">The value.</param>
    public static void SetIsFocused(DependencyObject element, bool? value)
    {
        if (element == null)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("element");
        }
        element.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, value);
    }
    #endregion Dependency Properties

    #region Event Handlers
    /// <summary>
    /// Determines whether the value of the dependency property <c>IsFocused</c> has change.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="d">The dependency object.</param>
    /// <param name="e">The <see cref="System.Windows.DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs"/> instance containing the event data.</param>
    private static void IsFocusedChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        // Ensure it is a FrameworkElement instance.
        var fe = d as FrameworkElement;
        if (fe != null && e.OldValue == null && e.NewValue != null && (bool)e.NewValue)
        {
            // Attach to the Loaded event to set the focus there. If we do it here it will
            // be overridden by the view rendering the framework element.
            fe.Loaded += FrameworkElementLoaded;
        }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// Sets the focus when the framework element is loaded and ready to receive input.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="sender">The sender.</param>
    /// <param name="e">The <see cref="System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs"/> instance containing the event data.</param>
    private static void FrameworkElementLoaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        // Ensure it is a FrameworkElement instance.
        var fe = sender as FrameworkElement;
        if (fe != null)
        {
            // Remove the event handler registration.
            fe.Loaded -= FrameworkElementLoaded;
            // Set the focus to the given framework element.
            fe.Focus();
            // Determine if it is a text box like element.
            var tb = fe as TextBoxBase;
            if (tb != null)
            {
                // Select all text to be ready for replacement.
                tb.SelectAll();
            }
        }
    }
    #endregion Event Handlers
}

Answer 2

For Silverlight:

using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Interactivity;

namespace MyProject.Behaviors
{
    public class FocusBehavior : Behavior<Control>
    {
        protected override void OnAttached()
        {
            this.AssociatedObject.Loaded += AssociatedObject_Loaded;
            base.OnAttached();
        }

        private void AssociatedObject_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            this.AssociatedObject.Loaded -= AssociatedObject_Loaded;
            if (this.HasInitialFocus || this.IsFocused)
            {
                this.GotFocus();
            }
        }

        private void GotFocus()
        {
            this.AssociatedObject.Focus();
            if (this.IsSelectAll)
            {
                if (this.AssociatedObject is TextBox)
                {
                    (this.AssociatedObject as TextBox).SelectAll();
                }
                else if (this.AssociatedObject is PasswordBox)
                {
                    (this.AssociatedObject as PasswordBox).SelectAll();
                }
                else if (this.AssociatedObject is RichTextBox)
                {
                    (this.AssociatedObject as RichTextBox).SelectAll();
                }
            }
        }

        public static readonly DependencyProperty IsFocusedProperty =
            DependencyProperty.Register(
                "IsFocused",
                typeof(bool),
                typeof(FocusBehavior),
                new PropertyMetadata(false, 
                    (d, e) => 
                    {
                        if ((bool)e.NewValue)
                        {
                            ((FocusBehavior)d).GotFocus();
                        }
                    }));

        public bool IsFocused
        {
            get { return (bool)GetValue(IsFocusedProperty); }
            set { SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, value); }
        }

        public static readonly DependencyProperty HasInitialFocusProperty =
            DependencyProperty.Register(
                "HasInitialFocus",
                typeof(bool),
                typeof(FocusBehavior),
                new PropertyMetadata(false, null));

        public bool HasInitialFocus
        {
            get { return (bool)GetValue(HasInitialFocusProperty); }
            set { SetValue(HasInitialFocusProperty, value); }
        }

        public static readonly DependencyProperty IsSelectAllProperty =
            DependencyProperty.Register(
                "IsSelectAll",
                typeof(bool),
                typeof(FocusBehavior),
                new PropertyMetadata(false, null));

        public bool IsSelectAll
        {
            get { return (bool)GetValue(IsSelectAllProperty); }
            set { SetValue(IsSelectAllProperty, value); }
        }

    }
}

LoginViewModel.cs:

    public class LoginModel : ViewModelBase
    {
        ....

        private bool _EmailFocus = false;
        public bool EmailFocus
        {
            get
            {
                return _EmailFocus;
            }
            set
            {
                if (value)
                {
                    _EmailFocus = false;
                    RaisePropertyChanged("EmailFocus");
                }
                _EmailFocus = value;
                RaisePropertyChanged("EmailFocus");
            }
        }
       ...
   }

Login.xaml:

xmlns:i="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/2010/interactivity"
xmlns:beh="clr-namespace:MyProject.Behaviors"

<TextBox Text="{Binding Email, Mode=TwoWay, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}">
    <i:Interaction.Behaviors>
        <beh:FocusBehavior IsFocused="{Binding EmailFocus}" IsSelectAll="True"/>
    </i:Interaction.Behaviors>
</TextBox>

OR

<TextBox Text="{Binding Email, Mode=TwoWay, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}">
    <i:Interaction.Behaviors>
        <beh:FocusBehavior HasInitialFocus="True" IsSelectAll="True"/>
    </i:Interaction.Behaviors>
</TextBox>

To set the focus should just do it in code:

EmailFocus = true;

Remember that this plugin is part of an html page, so other controls in the page might have the focus

if (!Application.Current.IsRunningOutOfBrowser)
{
    System.Windows.Browser.HtmlPage.Plugin.Focus();
}

Answer 3

Just do this:

<Window x:class...
   ...
   ...
   FocusManager.FocusedElement="{Binding ElementName=myTextBox}"
>
<Grid>
<TextBox Name="myTextBox"/>
...

Answer 4

You could use the ViewCommand design pattern. It describes a method for the MVVM design pattern to control a View from a ViewModel with commands.

I've implemented it based on King A.Majid's suggestion to use the MVVM Light Messenger class. The ViewCommandManager class handles invoking commands in connected views. It's basically the other direction of regular Commands, for these cases when a ViewModel needs to do some action in its View. It uses reflection like data-bound commands and WeakReferences to avoid memory leaks.

http://dev.unclassified.de/source/viewcommand (also published on CodeProject)

Answer 5

I found Crucial's solution to the IsVisible problem very useful. It didn't completely solve my problem, but some extra code following the same pattern for the IsEnabled pattern did.

To the IsFocusedChanged method I added:

    if (!fe.IsEnabled)
    {
        fe.IsEnabledChanged += fe_IsEnabledChanged;
    }

And here's the handler:

private static void fe_IsEnabledChanged(object sender, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
    var fe = (FrameworkElement)sender;
    if (fe.IsEnabled && (bool)((FrameworkElement)sender).GetValue(IsFocusedProperty))
    {
        fe.IsEnabledChanged -= fe_IsEnabledChanged;
        fe.Focus();
    }
}

Answer 6

I know this question has been answered a thousand times over by now, but I made some edits to Anvaka's contribution that I think will help others that had similar issues that I had.

Firstly, I changed the above Attached Property like so:

public static class FocusExtension
{
    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsFocusedProperty = 
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("IsFocused", typeof(bool?), typeof(FocusExtension), new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(IsFocusedChanged){BindsTwoWayByDefault = true});

    public static bool? GetIsFocused(DependencyObject element)
    {
        if (element == null)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("element");
        }

        return (bool?)element.GetValue(IsFocusedProperty);
    }

    public static void SetIsFocused(DependencyObject element, bool? value)
    {
        if (element == null)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("element");
        }

        element.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, value);
    }

    private static void IsFocusedChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        var fe = (FrameworkElement)d;

        if (e.OldValue == null)
        {
            fe.GotFocus += FrameworkElement_GotFocus;
            fe.LostFocus += FrameworkElement_LostFocus;
        }

        if (!fe.IsVisible)
        {
            fe.IsVisibleChanged += new DependencyPropertyChangedEventHandler(fe_IsVisibleChanged);
        }

        if ((bool)e.NewValue)
        {
            fe.Focus();
        }
    }

    private static void fe_IsVisibleChanged(object sender, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        var fe = (FrameworkElement)sender;
        if (fe.IsVisible && (bool)((FrameworkElement)sender).GetValue(IsFocusedProperty))
        {
            fe.IsVisibleChanged -= fe_IsVisibleChanged;
            fe.Focus();
        }
    }

    private static void FrameworkElement_GotFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        ((FrameworkElement)sender).SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, true);
    }

    private static void FrameworkElement_LostFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        ((FrameworkElement)sender).SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, false);
    }
}

My reason for adding the visibility references were tabs. Apparently if you used the attached property on any other tab outside of the initially visible tab, the attached property didn't work until you manually focused the control.

The other obstacle was creating a more elegant way of resetting the underlying property to false when it lost focus. That's where the lost focus events came in.

<TextBox            
    Text="{Binding Description}"
    FocusExtension.IsFocused="{Binding IsFocused}"/>

If there's a better way to handle the visibility issue, please let me know.

Note: Thanks to Apfelkuacha for the suggestion of putting the BindsTwoWayByDefault in the DependencyProperty. I had done that long ago in my own code, but never updated this post. The Mode=TwoWay is no longer necessary in the WPF code due to this change.