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Opening a subwindow as part of the MainWindow

Overview
Hey everyone, I'm working on a project that is a C# WPF desktop app to create and edit a complex system. Simply think of it as and editor that can put together a full description of a car with all it's subcomponents.
I want each different component of the car to have a separate editor window. Like select the painting on the car and tada a sidewindow appears where you can fully customize the car's paint. Then when you click on the engine, that same sidewindow get's replaced by a new editor about the car's engine.
Question
How can I make that editor window that I already created with xaml and codebehind to appear as a part of the MainWindow, embedded as a sidebar?
If possible, I would avoid any 3rd party libraries, but if there is no other 'clean' way of doing it then I'm open to suggestions in that area as well.
I have fully functional windows that I created with the designer, wrote all the code for it to work, now I just have to find a way to embed those into the MainWindow on a press of a button.
Thanks for any answers

If you want something to "part of the MainWindow", you should not create another window because a Window cannot be a child of another element.
What you probably want to do is to move the XAML markup and code-behind from your current subwindow into a UserControl. You can then put the UserControl(s) into an appropriate Panel in your MainWindow.
For example, if you want UserControl to appear a sidebar in the window, you could use a DockPanel to dock it to the right:
<DockPanel>
<Border DockPanel.Dock="Right" Background="Yellow">
<local:SidebarUserControl Margin="10" />
</Border>
<TextBlock>main content...</TextBlock>
</DockPanel>

navigation/load different views on WPF/MVVM

I am quite new to WPF development, and currently I am trying to use the MVVM on my application development. I have read a lot about MVVM navigation and switching views, but I can't find a solution for my current situation. Let's explain what it is:
First of all, I have my main View element, a Dockpanel, with some fixed areas, and a main "dynamic" area where the content should change, depending on actions:
<DockPanel>
<Label Content="Top Fixed element"/>
<StackPanel Orientation="Vertical" Height="auto" Width="150" DockPanel.Dock="Left">
<Label Content="SomeOptions"/>
<!-- some more elements -->
</StackPanel>
<Label DockPanel.Dock="Bottom" Content="Foot"/>
<ContentControl Content="{Binding CurrentMainViewElementViewModel}"/>
</DockPanel>
I have defined some DataTemplates that I would like to load in this ContentControl, here there is one of the Data Templates as example:
<Window.Resources>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type ViewModel:FileLoaderVM}">
<View:FileLoaderView/>
</DataTemplate>
</Window.Resources>
This FileLoader (View and View Model are implemented, using the RelayCommand and the INotifyPropertyChanged) opens a dialog box after clicking a button, where after selecting a file it is opened and parsed, and show all the found elements inside a ListView with multiple selection(in this case, persons with their data).
What I want to do now is to load another user control in this ContentControl, when I click a button. This button is defined in my view model like this:
public ICommand LoadPersons
{
get { return new RelayCommand(param => this.loadSelectedPersons(), param => (SelectedPersons!=null && SelectedPersons.Any()));}
}
My question comes at this point, how can I modify the content of the ContentControl, loading another User Control instead of the current one directly from my view model (in this "this.loadSelectedPersons()")?
If this is not possible, how should I approach to solve this problem?
Next to this action, I want to show all the previously selected elements and manipulate in different possible ways (inserting in a DB, saving in another file and so on), and I have already for that the appropriate User Control, that I would like to show in my main view element in the ContentControl section, keeping the other elements as they are originally.

lets see if i get you right.
you have a mainviewmodel with a property (CurrentMainViewElementViewModel) bound to the ContentControl. your MainViewmodel set the FileLoaderVM to this Property. now you wanna show a "new/other" Viewmodel when a File is seleted in your FileLoaderVM?
why dont you simply expose a event from your FileLoaderVM and subscribe to this event in your MainViewModel? if you do so your MainViewModel can then set the "new/other" Viewmodel to the ContentControl

To change content of ContentControl you do not load another user control, but change value of CurrentMainViewElementViewModel (to which ContentControl.Content is bound) to a new ViewModel, which will load another UserControl (defined in DataTemplate same way as FileLoaderVM is).
This looks like a job for main ViewModel (where CurrentMainViewElementViewModel is located).
Easiest solution is to provide a method in that ViewModel
public Switch()
{
CurrentMainViewElementViewModel = SomeViewModel;
}
and call this method from FileLoaderVM.

Use SendKeys in a UserControl

I want to use the C# System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys.SendWait() Method to send Keystrokes from an OnScreenKeyboard to a Textbox. Since I may use this OnScreenKeyboard at other places too I created a UserControl with View (for the Design of the Keyboard) and Viewmodel (basically for calling the Sendkeys.SendWait() Method) in an extra project.
Within this project I created a MainView where I included the UserControl via a ContentControl as you can see in the Code below. CurrentPage basically refers to the Viewmodel of the Keyboard.
<Window.Resources>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type viewModel:KeyboardViewmodel}">
<view:KeyboardView/>
</DataTemplate>
</Window.Resources>
<Grid>
<Border Background="White">
<HeaderedContentControl Content="{Binding Path=CurrentPage}"/>
</Border>
<TextBox Width="120"/>
</Grid>
I now have the OnScreenKeyboard and a Textbox in my Window. Clicking into the Textbox and pressing buttons of my OnScreenKeyboard will result in text appearing in my Textbox. All Controls within the KeyboardView are set to avoid getting focus. This is necessary to maintain focus on the Textbox.
The Buttons in the KeyboardView all bind to the Command ClickCommandin my KeyboardViewmodel. Here is the code of the KeyboardViewmodel:
public class KeyboardViewmodel : BaseModel
{
public BaseCommand ClickCommand { get; set; }
public KeyboardViewmodel()
{
ClickCommand = new BaseCommand(PressAndRelease);
}
public void PressAndRelease(object key)
{
if (((string)key).Length <= 1)
SendKeys.SendWait((string)key);
else
SendKeys.SendWait("{" + (string)key + "}");
}
}
Now I did create a NuGet Package with these Files and imported them to the project where I want to use my OnScreenKeyboard.
I did do basically the same as when I tested the OnScreenKeyboard before.
But let me explain the structure of the project a little more:
I have a MainView + MainViewmodel. The MainViewmodel manages the navigation between available pages. To show these pages I have - as in the short example before - a ContentControl whose content is bound to a CurrentPage Property. The MainViewis a normal Window, all other Views are UserControls.
In one of these pages I need an OnScreenKeyboard (DetailsView + DetailsViewmodel). So it seemed logical to me to use another ContentControl within the DetailsView:
<Border Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="4" Grid.ColumnSpan="3" Height="Auto" Width="Auto">
<ContentControl Content="{Binding Path=OnScreenKeyboard}"/>
</Border>
I create the KeyboardViewmodel in the constructor of the DetailsViewmodel. The constructor of the DetailsViewmodel is called in the MainViewmodel at startup.
So now everything works out fine so far, the OnScreenKeyboard is shown on the correct page in the correct place. If I click a button of the OnScreenKeyboard the proper bound command is called and the SendKeys.SendWait() Method is called.
But no text appears in the TextBox. I have a very bad understanding of the SendKeys.SendAwait() Method. Also, the MSDN Documentation seems to be not very exhaustive on this topic.
It states: "Sends the given keys to the active application, and then waits for the messages to be processed."
Now. The Active / Focused Application is my Application. So my guess is that the KeyStrokes should be processed by my Textbox.
My Questions:
Any guesses how to debug the 'SenWait()' Method further e.g. track where the strokes are really sent to or something like that?
Is this the correct way for sending KeyStrokes to an active Application? It seems like SendKeys comes from Windows Forms, I use WPF.
Should I just pass my Textbox as reference to the OnScreenKeyboard and write directly to the referenced Textbox? This would make me much less flexible in regards of reusability.
Update:
As pointed out in the comments this could probably be a duplicate question.
I am well aware of the various different solutions and have already considerd them:
http://wpfkb.codeplex.com/
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/32568/A-Touch-Screen-Keyboard-Control-in-WPF
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/145579/A-Software-Virtual-Keyboard-for-Your-WPF-Apps
But as one may understand these projects are looking all way too powerfull for my simple needs.
Here a screenshot to provide a better understanding of my needs:
It is really as simple as that. 4 rows of buttons that will never change, no other controls / functionality than sending the CommandParameter of the pressed button to the Textbox / Active Form.
Researching on that specific problem hasn't shown any problems like that. In most other SO Questions the problem is to send Data to another Window, not to send Data WITHIN the current Window.
So I don't consider this question as duplicate.

WPF and MVVM: bind UserControl to XAML dynamically

seems like a trivial task: i am building a wpf application, using MVVM pattern. what i want is dynamically change part of a view, using different UserControls, dependent on user input.
let's say, i have got 2 UserControls, one with a button, and another with a label.
in main view i have a container for that. following XAML "works":
<GroupBox Header="container" >
<local:UserControlButton />
</GroupBox>
and a UserControl element with buttons pops up. if i change it to another one, it works too.
question is how to feed that groupbox dynamically. if i put something like that in my model view:
private UserControl _myControl;
public UserControl MyControl
{
get
{
return _myControl;
}
set
{
_myControl= value;
InvokePropertyChanged("MyControl");
}
}
and change my view XAML to something like:
<GroupBox Header="container" >
<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding MyControl}" />
</GroupBox>
and feed it from command with usercontrol for button or for label: nothing happens, although "MyControl" variable is set and is "invoke property changed"..

Obviously there are many ways to skin this particular cat - but to answer the question of why it doesn't work you need to look into the ItemsSource property of ItemsControl on MSDN.
The items control is designed to show multiple items, provided through an IEnumerable passed to the ItemsSource property. You are passing a UserControl, so the binding will fail.
For your example, I would change the ItemsControl to a ContentControl and bind the content to your MyControl property. This should then work.
<GroupBox Header="container" >
<ContentControl Content="{Binding MyControl}" />
</GroupBox>
However, I would strongly recommend looking into other ways of doing this - having a control in your VM breaks MVVM to my mind. Depending on what you are doing look at data templates - #Sheridan's link in the comments provides an great description of a way to do it.

Couldn't post this as a comment so adding as answer..
Have a look at this:
Implementing an own "Factory" for reusing Views in WPF
It uses DataTemplates but doesn't require the DataTemplate section for each view. If you potentially have a lot of user controls/views you wish to display or you are reusing through multiple views or you are intending to actually dynamically generate a view (versus just loading an existing user control) then this might suite your needs.

c# wpf layout reusability

I'm trying to make a window layout usable from different windows.
As you can see from image, I've got a logo, a left vertical progress bar and two control buttons in the bottom part of the window (plus menu bar and status bar).
Those parts should be always the same in different windows, and play/stop should be interacting run-time with the common parts but also with parts build in the middle of the window ("part in each window different").
I can't understand what i should use for creating a standard layout callable from each window where I need it, made in a way were I can replace for each of those windows just the middle part.
Any tips? I probably just need to understand the way to go (sad to be c# wpf newbie)!

You can use a content control and then just switch the content
Master page for regions
This link has what you need. You can put the page templates in a separate file if you will be doing lots of content switching

If you create a user control with a <ContentPresenter> where you want the variable content to be, you can inject your own controls into the user control.
The user control would look like:
<UserControl>
<Grid>
<!-- Header Stuff -->
<ContentPresenter Name="MyContentPresenter" />
<!-- Footer Stuff -->
</Grid>
</UserControl>
In your windows, you'd have:
<Window>
<Grid>
<MyUserControl>
<MyUserControl.Content>
<!-- your window specific code here -->
</MyUserControl.Content>
</MyUserControl>
</Grid>
</Window>
You will need to expose a property called Content on your user control that returns/sets the Content property of the ContentPresenter element on the user control.
In the code-behind of the user control:
public object Content
{
get { return MyContentPresenter.Content; }
set { MyContentPresenter.Content = value; }
}