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

First off i would like to thank Avanka for helping me solve my focus problem. There is however a bug in the code he posted, namely in the line: if (e.OldValue == null)

The problem I had was that if you first click in your view and focus the control, e.oldValue is no longer null. Then when you set the variable to focus the control for the first time, this results in the lostfocus and gotfocus handlers not being set. My solution to this was as follows:

public static class ExtensionFocus
    {
    static ExtensionFocus()
        {
        BoundElements = new List<string>();
        }

    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsFocusedProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("IsFocused", typeof(bool?),
        typeof(ExtensionFocus), new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(false, IsFocusedChanged));

    private static List<string> BoundElements;

    public static bool? GetIsFocused(DependencyObject element)
        {
        if (element == null)
            {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("ExtensionFocus GetIsFocused called with null element");
            }
        return (bool?)element.GetValue(IsFocusedProperty);
        }

    public static void SetIsFocused(DependencyObject element, bool? value)
        {
        if (element == null)
            {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("ExtensionFocus SetIsFocused called with null element");
            }
        element.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, value);
        }

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

        // OLD LINE:
        // if (e.OldValue == null)
        // TWO NEW LINES:
        if (BoundElements.Contains(fe.Name) == false)
            {
            BoundElements.Add(fe.Name);
            fe.LostFocus += OnLostFocus;
            fe.GotFocus += OnGotFocus;
            }           


        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 OnLostFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
        if (sender != null && sender is Control s)
            {
            s.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, false);
            }
        }

    private static void OnGotFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
        if (sender != null && sender is Control s)
            {
            s.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, true);
            }
        }
    }

Answer 2

In my case, the FocusExtension didn't work until I change the method OnIsFocusedPropertyChanged. The original one was working only in debug when a break point stopped the process. At runtime, the process is too quick and nothing happend. With this little modification and the help of our friend Task, this is working fine in both scenarios.

private static void OnIsFocusedPropertyChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
  var uie = (UIElement)d;
  if ((bool)e.NewValue)
  {
    var action = new Action(() => uie.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke((Action)(() => uie.Focus())));
    Task.Factory.StartNew(action);
  }
}

Answer 3

Nobody seems to have included the final step to make it easy to update attributes via binded variables. Here's what I came up with. Let me know if there is a better way of doing this.

XAML

    <TextBox x:Name="txtLabel"
      Text="{Binding Label}"
      local:FocusExtension.IsFocused="{Binding txtLabel_IsFocused, Mode=TwoWay}" 
     />

    <Button x:Name="butEdit" Content="Edit"
        Height="40"  
        IsEnabled="{Binding butEdit_IsEnabled}"                        
        Command="{Binding cmdCapsuleEdit.Command}"                            
     />   

ViewModel

    public class LoginModel : ViewModelBase
    {

    public string txtLabel_IsFocused { get; set; }                 
    public string butEdit_IsEnabled { get; set; }                


    public void SetProperty(string PropertyName, string value)
    {
        System.Reflection.PropertyInfo propertyInfo = this.GetType().GetProperty(PropertyName);
        propertyInfo.SetValue(this, Convert.ChangeType(value, propertyInfo.PropertyType), null);
        OnPropertyChanged(PropertyName);
    }                


    private void Example_function(){

        SetProperty("butEdit_IsEnabled", "False");
        SetProperty("txtLabel_IsFocused", "True");        
    }

    }

Answer 4

This is an old thread, but there doesn't seem to be an answer with code that addresses the issues with Anavanka's accepted answer: it doesn't work if you set the property in the viewmodel to false, or if you set your property to true, the user manually clicks on something else, and then you set it to true again. I couldn't get Zamotic's solution to work reliably in these cases either.

Pulling together some of the discussions above gives me the code below which does address these issues I think:

public static class FocusExtension
{
    public static bool GetIsFocused(DependencyObject obj)
    {
        return (bool)obj.GetValue(IsFocusedProperty);
    }

    public static void SetIsFocused(DependencyObject obj, bool value)
    {
        obj.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, value);
    }

    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsFocusedProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached(
         "IsFocused", typeof(bool), typeof(FocusExtension),
         new UIPropertyMetadata(false, null, OnCoerceValue));

    private static object OnCoerceValue(DependencyObject d, object baseValue)
    {
        if ((bool)baseValue)
            ((UIElement)d).Focus();
        else if (((UIElement) d).IsFocused)
            Keyboard.ClearFocus();
        return ((bool)baseValue);
    }
}

Having said that, this is still complex for something that can be done in one line in codebehind, and CoerceValue isn't really meant to be used in this way, so maybe codebehind is the way to go.

Answer 5

System.Windows.Forms.Application.DoEvents();
Keyboard.Focus(tbxLastName);

Answer 6

Anvakas brilliant code is for Windows Desktop applications. If you are like me and needed the same solution for Windows Store apps this code might be handy:

public static class FocusExtension
{
    public static bool GetIsFocused(DependencyObject obj)
    {
        return (bool)obj.GetValue(IsFocusedProperty);
    }


    public static void SetIsFocused(DependencyObject obj, bool value)
    {
        obj.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, value);
    }


    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsFocusedProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached(
         "IsFocused", typeof(bool), typeof(FocusExtension),
         new PropertyMetadata(false, OnIsFocusedPropertyChanged));


    private static void OnIsFocusedPropertyChanged(DependencyObject d,
        DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        if ((bool)e.NewValue)
        {
            var uie = d as Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.Control;

            if( uie != null )
            {
                uie.Focus(FocusState.Programmatic);
            }
        }
    }
}