Detecting whether page is navigated to or off C# - c#

In my WPF application i have multiple pages.
One page is called "startup" and this is the one shown most of the time.
An NFC-Reader is running in the background on a thread and everytime you scan a card, it executes code.
My navigation works by having a class called "InstanceContainer.cs" which basically just holds all the instances to my pages which i then navigate to using (for example) NavigationService.Navigate(InstanceContainer.startup());
However i want it to only execute said code, when "startup" is shown while a card is scanned. My idea would be to just set a public bool like public bool startupShown; inside of "startup" which is then checked for in the thread that runs the NFC-Scanning.
But how do i neatly update this bool? Of course it could be updated manually on every buttonclick that leads away and to "startup", but there has to be a better way than that.
I found this but didn't quite understand it nor could i get it to work.
Thanks in advance

You could use the Page's IsLoaded property to determine whether it's currently loaded and displayed in the Frame.
This property can however not be accessed directly from a background thread so you could either add your own field or property to the start page and handle the Loaded and Unloaded events to set it...:
public partial class StartupPage : Page
{
public bool startupShown;
public Page1()
{
InitializeComponent();
Loaded += (s, e) => startupShown = true;
Unloaded += (s, e) => startupShown = false;
}
}
...or use the dispatcher to access the built-in Loaded property from the background thread:
Page page = InstanceContainer.startup();
bool isloaded = page.Dispatcher.Invoke(() => page.IsLoaded);

Related

Cannot get MainPage in Xamarin.Forms to react/change

I have tried to different methods to get my MainPage to change and it is not happening. Basically when my App starts it needs to do some Async tasks to initialize everything, and then get the real main page to display. I first tried an event handler in App.cs. I can confirm the event handler does fire off in my debugger. However the code to switch the main page is not successfully doing so. Nothing changes in my UI. This code is below:
private void UnitStatusModelChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
UnitStatusModel = _unitStatusMonitor.UnitStatusModel;
UnitStatusViewModel = new UnitStatusViewModel(UnitStatusModel, InputResourceHandler);
MainPage = new MainTabbed(UnitStatusViewModel, InputResourceHandler);
Debug.WriteLine("Switched page to " + UnitStatusModel.Version.Name);
}
protected override void OnStart()
{
_unitStatusMonitor.UnitStatusChanged += new UnitStatusModelChangedEventHandler(UnitStatusModelChanged);
_commandQueue.StartQueue();
}
I thought maybe setting MainPage this way is not the way to go. So I tried making the MainPage a blank NavigationPage, and then pushing a model page on top once the app is ready. This also had no effect.
var newPage = new MainTabbed(
new UnitStatusViewModel(_unitStatusModel, inputResourceHandler),
inputResourceHandler
);
App.Current.MainPage.Navigation.PushModalAsync(newPage);
I can confirm that if I start the app with a MainTabbed page, the page does display, so it should not be a problem with MainTabbed. Again, I also verified the in the debugger these lines of code are being executed with no exceptions being thrown. Still, no change to MainPage. What gives?
Check your thread after your async completes, when you call PushModalAsync (or any UI thing). Make sure it's on the main thread.

Invoke a javascript function in WebBrowser and wait until javascript event fires

I'm working in .NET, C# to be specific, creating a Win Forms UserControl, which contains a WebBrowser control. The WebBrowser control hosts a page, which in turn uses a third-party javascript component. The problem I'm having is with invoking a javascript function to initialize the third-party javascript component and block the UI in the Windows Forms application until the component has been initialized, which the component notifies you of through an internal javascript event that it has.
Part of the problem is that the only way to change any configuration parameter of the third-party javascript component is to re-initialize it with the new configuration. So for example, if you want to make it read-only you have to re-initialize it with the read-only parameter.
I've got everything working in terms of being able to call the Document.InvokeScript and then in the web page call the UserControl method using window.external but the problem I'm having is how to block the UserControl code that makes the call to initialize the javascript component so that it waits and doesn't return control to the user until the initialization of the javascript component has been completed.
The reason I need it to work this way is because if I have a "Read-Only" checkbox on the form that changes the the ReadOnly property of the UserControl to control whether the javascript component shows the data as read-only and the user clicks that checkbox really quickly you will either get a javascript error or the checkbox will get out of sync with the actual read-only state of the javascript component. This seems to happen because the control hasn't re-initialized yet after it's configuration has changed and you're already trying to change it again.
I've spent hours and hours trying work out a way to make it work using everything from AutoResetEvent to Application.DoEvents and so on, but don't seem to be able to get it working.
The closest I've found is Invoke a script in WebBrowser, and wait for it to finish running (synchronized) but that uses features introduced in VS2012 (and I'm using VS2010) and I don't think it would work anyway as it's a bit different in that you're not waiting for a javascript event to fire.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The problem in the first place is the requirement to "block" the UI thread until some event has been fired. It's usually possible to re-factor the application to use asynchronous event handlers (with or without async/await), to yield execution control back to the message loop and avoid any blocking.
Now let's say, for some reason you cannot re-factor your code. In this case, you'd need a secondary modal message loop. You'd also need to disable the main UI while you're waiting for the event, to avoid nasty re-entrancy scenarios. The waiting itself should to be user-friendly (e.g., use the wait cursor or progress animation) and non-busy (avoid burning CPU cycles on a tight loop with DoEvents).
One way to do this is to use a modal dialog with a user-friendly message, which gets automatically dismissed when the desired JavaScript event/callback has occured. Here's a complete example:
using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Windows.Forms;
namespace WbTest
{
[ComVisible(true)]
[ClassInterface(ClassInterfaceType.None)]
[ComDefaultInterface(typeof(IScripting))]
public partial class MainForm : Form, IScripting
{
WebBrowser _webBrowser;
Action _onScriptInitialized;
public MainForm()
{
InitializeComponent();
_webBrowser = new WebBrowser();
_webBrowser.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
_webBrowser.ObjectForScripting = this;
this.Controls.Add(_webBrowser);
this.Shown += MainForm_Shown;
}
void MainForm_Shown(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
var dialog = new Form
{
Width = 100,
Height = 50,
StartPosition = FormStartPosition.CenterParent,
ShowIcon = false,
ShowInTaskbar = false,
ControlBox = false,
FormBorderStyle = FormBorderStyle.FixedSingle
};
dialog.Controls.Add(new Label { Text = "Please wait..." });
dialog.Load += (_, __) => _webBrowser.DocumentText =
"<script>setTimeout(function() { window.external.OnScriptInitialized}, 2000)</script>";
var canClose = false;
dialog.FormClosing += (_, args) =>
args.Cancel = !canClose;
_onScriptInitialized = () => { canClose = true; dialog.Close(); };
Application.UseWaitCursor = true;
try
{
dialog.ShowDialog();
}
finally
{
Application.UseWaitCursor = false;
}
MessageBox.Show("Initialized!");
}
// IScripting
public void OnScriptInitialized()
{
_onScriptInitialized();
}
}
[ComVisible(true)]
[InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIDispatch)]
public interface IScripting
{
void OnScriptInitialized();
}
}
Which looks like this:
Another option (a less user-friendly one) is to use something like WaitOneAndPump from here. You'd still need to take care about disabling the main UI and showing some kind of waiting feedback to the user.
Updated to address the comment. Is your WebBrowser actually a part of the UI and visible to the user? Should the user be able to interact with it? If so, you cannot use a secondary thread to execute JavaScript. You need to do it on the main thread and keep pumping messages, but WaitOne doesn't pump most of Windows messages (it only pumps a small fraction of them, related to COM). You might be able to use WaitOneAndPump which I mentioned above. You'd still need to disable the UI while waiting, to avoid re-entrancy.
Anyhow, that'd still be a kludge. You really shouldn't be blocking the execution just to keep the linear code flow. If you can't use async/await, you can always implement a simple state machine class and use callbacks to continue from where it was left. That's how it used to be before async/await.

Override BackKeyPress in a classlibrary, is that possible on WP8?

I pass a PhoneApplicationPage instance to a classlibrary, and popup an usercontrol in this classlibrary, when I press back button, the whole application exit. Yesterday I sovled the problem in an application, but I cannot use the method in this classlibrary case.
I tried to subscribe to the event(BackKeyPress), but VS2012 says "parent_BackKeyPress" "System.EventHandler" override and delegate cannot match. I checked, they match.
PhoneApplicationPage mContext=...;
mContext.BackKeyPress += new EventHandler(parent_BackKeyPress);
void parent_BackKeyPress(CancelEventArgs e)
{
ppChangePIN.IsOpen = false;
Application.Current.RootVisual.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;
}
anything incorrect here? plus, can I use navigationservice in classlibrary? I did this before to navigate to a page created in the classlibrary like below, well it ends up crashing. Some say can't use pages in classlibrary, instead we should use Popup(usercontrol).
mContext.NavigationService.Navigate(new Uri("/ChangePINPage.xaml", UriKind.Relative));
I have successfully done just that:
// or some other method of accessing the current page
// - but via Application, to which you have access also in class library
var currentPage = (PhoneApplicationPage)((PhoneApplicationFrame)Application.Current.RootVisual).Content;
currentPage.BackKeyPress += (sender, args) =>
{
// Display dialog or something, and when you decide not to perform back navigation:
args.Cancel = true;
};
Of course you have to make sure that this code is executed if and only if the CurrentPage is the main page.
I also use Pages in class library. You can use NavigationService in class library: you can get it for example from current page obtained as above (currentPage.NavigationService). Or you could use the Navigate method of PhoneApplicationFrame:
((PhoneApplicationFrame)Application.Current.RootVisual)
.Navigate(
new Uri(
"/ClassLibraryName;component/SamplePage.xaml",
UriKind.Relative));
As the short Uris like "/SamplePage.xaml" will work in Application Project, to navigate to page in class library you have to give full location: "/ClassLibraryName;component/SamplePage.xaml".
But note, that if the application chooses to display message box to stop from exiting, it will not pass certification, as (from Technical certification requirements for Windows Phone):
5.2.4.2 – Back button: first screen
Pressing the Back button from the first screen of an app must close the app.

Waiting for Controls to be Initialized

My form looks something like a three-pane email client. Left side is a grid with a list of people. Top right is the current person's detail record. Bottom right is a custom control with many checkboxes displaying the current person's areas of expertise:
[x] cooking [x] window cleaning [x] brain surgery
[x] massage-therapy [x] singing [ ] random acts of vandalism
When the form is opened, the focus goes to the first person listed in the grid on the left-side of the form,, and the grid's focused_row_changed event fires. In the handler for this event I get the current person's id, then fetch detail data for that person from the database and populate the detail record, and also fetch the person's areas-of-expertise rows and set the checkboxes. All of this is working fine except when the form is first opened, because then the custom control with its many checkboxes is not yet initialized. At that point MyCustomControl is null.
if (null != MyCustomControl)
{
MyCustomControl.SetCheckedValues( datasource);
}
What is the best practice design-pattern for handling this situation? What do I do here when my control isn't fully initialized yet?
if (null != MyCustomControl)
{
MyCustomControl.SetCheckedValues( datasource);
}
else
{
// ?? Wait around for a bit and keep trying every 100ms?
}
The way I have solved this in my controls when they have had this problem is to implement ISupportInitialize.
In your control, you would put something like:
public class MyCustomControl: ISupportInitialize
{
private bool _initializing = false;
private void BeginInit()
{
_initializing = true;
}
private void EndInit()
{
_initializing = false;
}
private void SomeMethodThatWouldRaiseAnEventDuringInit()
{
if (_initializing) return;
//...
}
}
The windows forms designer checks for your control implementing the interface, and produces this code in the .Designer.cs file:
((System.ComponentModel.ISupportInitialize)(this.customControl1)).BeginInit();
///
/// customControl1
///
this.customControl1.SelectedIndex = 0; //this would normally raise the event
((System.ComponentModel.ISupportInitialize)(this.customControl1)).EndInit();
From what I understand, you are setting MyCustomControl.SetCheckedValues( datasource); when focused_row_changed event fires.
This also tends to happen when the form is just loading, which is generally not desired, because you end up with events telling things to load when, for example, a selected index is still -1.
The way I have been working around this is I have a global boolean in the form called doneLoading. It starts off false and becomes true when the Form_Shown() event gets called.
From there I just put an if(doneLoading) around any piece of code that needs to wait until the form is actually done loading before it is allowed to execute. In your case, I would do:
if(doneLoading)
{
MyCustomControl.SetCheckedValues( datasource);
}
Do your UI initialization functions in a subroutine that isn't called until after all the other UI elements are initialized, or base your calculations on the back-end values instead of the UI.
in response to comments and other posts, if you can't get anything else to work, you can add a 'refresh' button to the UI

WebBrowser control doesn't respond during Form_Load

I have a WinForms form with, amongst other things, a WebBrowser control. I use the browser to display a preview of the file the user creates.
When the user loads a document, I want it to automatically refresh the preview window to show the new document. This works 100%.
However, I just added a "Load most recent document" feature which, as you should be able to tell, loads the last document on program start up. Although it goes through the same code path as any other method of loading a document (Open button, File->Open, File->MRU, etc), the preview does not refresh on start up.
I've followed the execution in the debugger, and all the code is being executed. However, it appears that the WebBrowser simply isn't working. If I hit the refresh button (which goes through the same code path) afterwards, it works fine.
public partial class frmMain : Form {
int scrolltop = 0, scrollleft = 0;
delegate void VoidDelegate();
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {
//irrelevant initialization code omitted
//this is normally 'about:blank', but it doesn't matter anyway
html.Navigate("http://google.com");
NewFile();
if (GlobalSettings.MRU.Files.Count > 0) {
LoadFile(GlobalSettings.MRU.Files[0]);
}
}
public void NewFile() {
//misc blanking omitted
html.DocumentText = "";
}
private void LoadFile(string file) {
//file loading code omitted
//Trying to call RefreshPreview after everything else is done.
this.Invoke(new VoidDelegate(RefreshPreview));
//RefreshPreview());
}
public void RefreshPreview() {
//preserve the position if possible
if (html.Document.Body != null) {
scrolltop = html.Document.Body.ScrollTop;
scrollleft = html.Document.Body.ScrollLeft;
}
//string code = HtmlProcessing.ProcessCode(txtCode.Text, GetImageList());
string code = "If you can see this, it worked.";
html.DocumentText = code;
}
}
If you paste this code into a form named frmMain with a WebBrowser control named html, and hook up the Form1_Load event (note to self, rename this ;), you should be able to reproduce this sample. Maybe add a button that calls RefreshPreview() too.
So, short version: During Form_Load, WebBrowser doesn't do anything. Afterwards, it works fine. I need it to do something during Form_Load, what am I doing wrong?
I would recommend moving your code to the Form.Shown event. The problem is likely due to the order and timing of Form events. Since Load occurs prior to display of the form, the WebBrowser's VisibleChanged event never occurs, and I believe it is completely inactive.

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