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

Let me answer to your question in three parts.

1. I'm wondering what is "cs.txtCompanyID" in your example? Is it a TextBox control? If yes, then you are on a wrong way. Generally speaking it's not a good idea to have any reference to UI in your ViewModel. You can ask "Why?" but this is another question to post on Stackoverflow :).

2. The best way to track down issues with Focus is... debugging .Net source code. No kidding. It saved me a lot of time many times. To enable .net source code debugging refer to Shawn Bruke's blog.

3. Finally, general approach that I use to set focus from ViewModel is Attached Properties. I wrote very simple attached property, which can be set on any UIElement. And it can be bound to ViewModel's property "IsFocused" for example. Here it is:

   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, OnIsFocusedPropertyChanged));
   
       private static void OnIsFocusedPropertyChanged(
           DependencyObject d, 
           DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
       {
           var uie = (UIElement) d;
           if ((bool) e.NewValue)
           {
               uie.Focus(); // Don't care about false values.
           }
       }
   }
   

   Now in your View (in XAML) you can bind this property to your ViewModel:

   <TextBox local:FocusExtension.IsFocused="{Binding IsUserNameFocused}" />
   

Hope this helps :). If it doesn't refer to the answer #2.

Cheers.

Answer 2

After implementing the accepted answer I did run across an issue that when navigating views with Prism the TextBox would still not get focus. A minor change to the PropertyChanged handler resolved it

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

Answer 3

The problem is that once the IsUserNameFocused is set to true, it will never be false. This solves it by handling the GotFocus and LostFocus for the FrameworkElement.

I was having trouble with the source code formatting so here is a link