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Must disconnect specified child from current parent Visual before attaching to new parent Visual

I'm new to WPF and trying to build my first application which is multiviewer of multi streams together for learning purpose.
I have 24 multimedia element on the main window and I want to Fullscreen selected multimedia element when there will be one more click to minimize this full screened media.
Code is like this
foreach (var item in MediaElements)
{
item.LoadedBehavior = MediaState.Manual;
item.MouseEnter += mediaElement1_MouseEnter;
item.MouseLeave += mediaElement1_MouseLeave;
item.Loaded += mediaElement1_Loaded;
item.MouseLeftButtonUp += (o, args) =>
{
if(!fullscreen)
{
ListOfMedia.Children.Remove(item);
this.Content = item;
this.WindowStyle = WindowStyle.None;
this.WindowState = WindowState.Maximized;
}
else
{
this.Content = ListOfMedia;
ListOfMedia.Children.Add(item);
this.WindowStyle = WindowStyle.SingleBorderWindow;
this.WindowState = WindowState.Normal;
}
fullscreen = !fullscreen;
};
}
When I click it the first time, it's working very well, the window is going on maximum screen size, but when I'm clicking it on next time to minimize it, there is an exception which is saying to me
System.ArgumentException: 'Must disconnect specified child from current parent Visual before attaching to new parent Visual.'
I checked some StackOverflow questions but can't find the correct solution, someone was talking about extension method to delete children from parents tree, I wrote this extension method but I don't know what is the problem and what idea is behind this problem? What I must delete from and what is happening at all.
Please tell me what is happening here.

The whole idea is that if an element already has a logical parent, then you cannot assign it as another elements child.
Imagine the following set up:
CtCtrl = ContentControl
StPnl = StackPanel
br1 = Border
if(CtCtrl.Content != null)
{
var br1 = CtCtrl.Content as Border;
StPnl.Children.Add(br1);
}
The above will result in System.InvalidOperationException:'Specified element is already the logical child of another elelemt. Disconnect it first.'
You can easily orphan that element before adding it to the StackPanel by the following code:
if(CtCtrl.Content != null)
{
var br1 = CtCtrl.Content as Border;
CtCtrl.Content = null;
StPnl.Children.Add(br1);
}
And the exception will be gone!

Getting list of checked radiobuttons in .net

TLDR; Looking for a method to retrieve all radiobuttons by means of something like this... (psudo)
List<RadioButton> btn = new List<RadioButton>;
btn = stackPanel.getAllRadioButtons()
I am currently building a little quiz application in C#. I have functions that add the required GUI elements to a groupbox. I would like to know if there is any way that I can loop through the created elements (for instance radio buttons) to see which are checked.
Here is one of the functions along with how they are added to the window.
private void tfQ(string questionBody)
{
StackPanel questionPanel = new StackPanel{Orientation = Orientation.Vertical};
questionPanel.Children.Add(new Label { Content = questionBody });
GroupBox group = new GroupBox();
RadioButton trueRadio = new RadioButton();
trueRadio.Content = "True";
RadioButton falseRadio = new RadioButton();
falseRadio.Content = "False";
questionPanel.Children.Add(trueRadio);
questionPanel.Children.Add(falseRadio);
group.Content = questionPanel;
mainStack.Children.Add(group);
}
Constructor:
public quiz()
{
tfQ("This is a true/false question");
Window w = new Window();
w.Content = mainStack;
w.Show();
}
I have found many ways to do it in the C# scripting format
(using the Control function ...)
var checkedButton = container.Controls.OfType<RadioButton>()
.FirstOrDefault(r => r.Checked);
but I have not yet found a "programmatic" way of doing it. I have considered changing the type of void tfQ to a StackPanel, but that only helps me to easier loop through the stack panels, althought that only partly solves me problem - allows me to easier loop through the StackPanels but I still don't know how to get the RadioButtons on a panel.
P.S I am very new to C# - with experience in Java/C/C++/Python

I made use of the following code to cast the content into a new groupbox and stackpanel, respectively.
if (child is GroupBox)
{
if ((child as GroupBox).Content is StackPanel)
{
StackPanel d = (StackPanel)((GroupBox)child).Content;
}
}
This allowed me to cast the content into a local copy of a control. It may not be the best way - I'm sure it is very inefficient to be honest. Solved the problem.

Can I give controls an index property in C# like in VB?

I've found similar answers to my question before, but not quite to what I'm trying to do...
In Visual Basic (last I used it, in 06/07) there was an "Index" property you could assign to multiple controls with the same name. I used this primarily to loop through controls, i.e.:
For i = 1 to 500
picSeat(i).Print "Hello"
Next i
Is there a way to do this in C#? I know there is a .IndexOf(), but would that really help for what I'm doing? I want to have multiple controls with the same name, just different index.
This is a Windows Form Application, and I'm using Visual Studio 2012. I am talking about controls, not arrays/lists; this was possible in VB and I was wondering if it was possible at all in C#. So I want to have, say, 30 seats in a theatre. I want to have each seat represented by a picturebox named "picSeat". VB would let me name several objects the exact same, and would assign a value to a control property "Index". That way, I could use the above loop to print "Hello" in every picture box with only 3 lines of code.

No, this feature does not exist in C#, and was never implemented in the transition from classic VB to VB.Net.
What I normally do instead is put each of the controls in question in a common parent container. The Form itself can work, but if you need to distinguish these from others of the same type a GroupBox or Panel control will work, too. Then, you access the controls like this:
foreach (var picBox in parentControl.Controls.OfType<PictureBox>())
{
// do something with each picturebox
}
If you want to use a specific control, just write by name:
pictureBox6.SomeProperty = someValue;
If you need to change a specific control determined at run-time, normally this is in response to a user event:
void PictureBox_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
var picBox = sender As PictureBox;
if (picBox == null) return;
//picBox is now whichever box was clicked
// (assuming you set all your pictureboxes to use this handler)
}
If you really really want the Control Arrays feature, you can do it by adding code to create the array to your form's Load event:
PictureBox[] pictureBoxes = Me.Controls.OfType<PictureBox>().ToArray();

Are we talking WinForms here? I'm not sure, but I don't think you can have multiple controls in winforms with same name. But I vaguely recall doing something similar and the solution was to name them Button_1, Button_2 etc. Then you can iterate through all controls and get your own index.
Beware though that if you want to instanciate a separate control for each seat in a theatre, you might run into some serious performance issues :) I've done something similar to that as well and ended up drawing the whole thing on a canvas and using mouse coordinates to handle the events correctly.

You may want to check out the Uid property of controls.
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.uielement.uid(v=vs.110).aspx)
You can access Control through Uid property with the following
private static UIElement FindUid(this DependencyObject parent, string uid)
{
var count = VisualTreeHelper.GetChildrenCount(parent);
if (count == 0) return null;
for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)
{
var el = VisualTreeHelper.GetChild(parent, i) as UIElement;
if (el == null) continue;
if (el.Uid == uid) return el;
el = el.FindUid(uid);
if (el != null) return el;
}
return null;
}
And simply use
var control = FindUid("someUid");
I copied code from this post

If you create an indexed dictionary of your user control, it will behave pretty much the same as in VB6, though you'll not see it on the VS C# GUI. You'll have to get around the placement issues manually. Still - and most importantly -, you'll be able to refer to any instance by the index.
The following example is for 3 pieces for clarity, but of course you could automate every step of the process with appropriate loops.
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
...
Dictionary<int, UserControl1> NameOfUserControlInstance = new Dictionary<int, UserControl1>()
{
{ 1, new UserControl1 {}},
{ 2, new UserControl1 {}},
{ 3, new UserControl1 {}}
};
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
NameOfUserControlInstance[1].Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, 0);
NameOfUserControlInstance[2].Location = new System.Drawing.Point(200, 0);
NameOfUserControlInstance[3].Location = new System.Drawing.Point(400, 0);
Controls.Add(NameOfUserControlInstance[1]);
Controls.Add(NameOfUserControlInstance[2]);
Controls.Add(NameOfUserControlInstance[3]);
}
...
}

I like using Tags to apply any type of meta data about the controls
for (int i = 0; i< 10; ++i)
{
Button button = new Button();
button.Tag = i;
}

Copying a TabItem with an MVVM structure

This is an attempt to expand on this question. In my WPF program I've been cloning tabItems by using an XamlWriter in a function called TrycloneElement. I originally found this function here, but the function can also be viewed in the link to my previous question.
Now that I am beginning to worry about functionality inside my program, I found that the TrycloneElement function does not replicate any code-behind functionality assigned to the tabItem that it is cloning.
Because of High Core's link and comment on my earlier question I decided to start implementing functionality on my tabItems through Data Binding with my ViewModel.
Here is a sample of a command that I've implemented:
public viewModel()
{
allowReversing = new Command(allowReversing_Operations);
}
public Command AllowReversing
{
get { return allowReversing; }
}
private Command allowReversing;
private void allowReversing_Operations()
{
//Query for Window1
var mainWindow = Application.Current.Windows
.Cast<Window1>()
.FirstOrDefault(window => window is Window1) as Window1;
if (mainWindow.checkBox1.IsChecked == true) //Checked
{
mainWindow.checkBox9.IsEnabled = true;
mainWindow.groupBox7.IsEnabled = true;
}
else //UnChecked
{
mainWindow.checkBox9.IsEnabled = false;
mainWindow.checkBox9.IsChecked = false;
mainWindow.groupBox7.IsEnabled = false;
}
}
*NOTE: I know that I cheated and interacted directly with my View in the above code, but I wasn't sure how else to run those commands. If it is a problem, or there is another way, please show me how I can run those same commands without interacting with the View like I did.
Now to the question:
After changing my code and adding the commands to my ViewModel, the TrycloneElement function no longer works. At run time during the tab clone I receive an XamlParseException on line, object x = XamlReader.Load(xmlReader); that reads:
I'm fine with ditching the function if there is a better way and I don't need it anymore. But ultimately, how do I take a tabItem's design and functionality and clone it? (Please keep in mind that I really am trying to correct my structure)
Thank you for your help.
Revision of Leo's answer
This is the current version of Leo's answer that I have compiling. (There were some syntax errors)
public static IList<DependencyProperty> GetAllProperties(DependencyObject obj)
{
return (from PropertyDescriptor pd in TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(obj, new Attribute[] { new PropertyFilterAttribute(PropertyFilterOptions.SetValues) })
select DependencyPropertyDescriptor.FromProperty(pd)
into dpd
where dpd != null
select dpd.DependencyProperty).ToList();
}
public static void CopyPropertiesFrom(this FrameworkElement controlToSet,
FrameworkElement controlToCopy)
{
foreach (var dependencyValue in GetAllProperties(controlToCopy)
.Where((item) => !item.ReadOnly)
.ToDictionary(dependencyProperty => dependencyProperty, controlToCopy.GetValue))
{
controlToSet.SetValue(dependencyValue.Key, dependencyValue.Value);
}
}

Here is my example of a properly-implemented dynamic TabControl in WPF.
The main idea is that each Tab Item is a separate widget that contains its own logic and data, which is handled by the ViewModel, while the UI does what the UI must do: show data, not contain data.
The bottom line is that all data and functionality is managed at the ViewModel / Model levels, and since the TabControl is bound to an ObservableCollection, you simply add another element to that Collection whenever you need to add a new Tab.
This removes the need for "cloning" the UI or do any other weird manipulations with it.

1.) To fix that XamlParseException, make sure you have a public constructor like an empty one, you probably defined a constructor and when you tried to serialize that object and deserialize it can't. You have to explicitly add the default constructor.
2.) I don't like the word clone, but I'd say, when they want to copy. I'll manually create a new tab item control then do reflection on it.
I have this code that I made
public static IList<DependencyProperty> GetAllProperties(DependencyObject obj)
{
return (from PropertyDescriptor pd in TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(obj, new Attribute[] {new PropertyFilterAttribute(PropertyFilterOptions.SetValues)})
select DependencyPropertyDescriptor.FromProperty(pd)
into dpd where dpd != null select dpd.DependencyProperty).ToList();
}
public static void CopyPropertiesFrom(this FrameworkElement controlToSet,
FrameworkElement controlToCopy)
{
foreach (var dependencyValue in GetAllProperties(controlToCopy)
.Where((item) => !item.ReadOnly))
.ToDictionary(dependencyProperty => dependencyProperty, controlToCopy.GetValue))
{
controlToSet.SetValue(dependencyValue.Key, dependencyValue.Value);
}
}
So it would be like
var newTabItem = new TabItem();
newTabItem.CopyPropertiesFrom(masterTab);

c# wpf overlapping controls not receiving mouse events

I am building a canvas control. This root canvas has several overlapping children (canvas as well). This is done so each child can handle its own drawing and I can then compose the final result with any combination of children to get the desired behavior.
This is working very well as far as rendering is concerned. This does not work so well with mouse events however. The way mouse events works are as follow (using previewmousemove as an example):
1- If root canvas is under mouse, fire event
2- Check all children, if one is under mouse, fire event and stop
As such, only the first child I add will receive the mouse move event. The event is not propagated to all children because they overlap.
To overcome this, I attempted the following:
1- Override mouse events in the root canvas
2- For every event, find all children that want to handle the event using VisualTreeHelper.HitTest
3- For all children that returned a valid hit test result (ie: under mouse and willing to handle the event (IsHitTestVisible == true)), ???
This is where I am stuck, I somehow need to send the mouse event to all children, and stop the normal flow of the event to make sure the first child doesn't receive it twice (via handled = true in the event).
By using RaiseEvent with the same event passed on the children, things seem to work but somehow it raises the event on the parent (root canvas) as well. To bypass this I needed to create a copy of the event and set force set the source though it appears to be more of a hack than a solution. Is there a proper way to do what I am trying to do? Code example follows.
public class CustomCanvas : Canvas
{
private List<object> m_HitTestResults = new List<object>();
public new event MouseEventHandler MouseMove;
public CustomCanvas()
{
base.PreviewMouseMove += new MouseEventHandler(CustomCanvas_MouseMove);
}
private void CustomCanvas_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
// Hack here, why is the event raised on the parent as well???
if (e.OriginalSource == this)
{
return;
}
Point pt = e.GetPosition((UIElement)sender);
m_HitTestResults.Clear();
VisualTreeHelper.HitTest(this,
new HitTestFilterCallback(OnHitTest),
new HitTestResultCallback(OnHitTest),
new PointHitTestParameters(pt));
MouseEventArgs tmpe = new MouseEventArgs(e.MouseDevice, e.Timestamp, e.StylusDevice);
tmpe.RoutedEvent = e.RoutedEvent;
tmpe.Source = this;
foreach (object hit in m_HitTestResults)
{
UIElement element = hit as UIElement;
if (element != null)
{
// This somehow raises the event on us as well as the element here, why???
element.RaiseEvent(tmpe);
}
}
var handlers = MouseMove;
if (handlers != null)
{
handlers(sender, e);
}
e.Handled = true;
}
private HitTestFilterBehavior OnHitTest(DependencyObject o)
{
UIElement element = o as UIElement;
if (element == this)
{
return HitTestFilterBehavior.ContinueSkipSelf;
}
else if (element != null && element.IsHitTestVisible && element != this)
{
return HitTestFilterBehavior.Continue;
}
return HitTestFilterBehavior.ContinueSkipSelfAndChildren;
}
private HitTestResultBehavior OnHitTest(HitTestResult result)
{
// Add the hit test result to the list that will be processed after the enumeration.
m_HitTestResults.Add(result.VisualHit);
// Set the behavior to return visuals at all z-order levels.
return HitTestResultBehavior.Continue;
}

I think you should use the preview events because those are RoutingStrategy.Tunnel from Window to the most high control in Z-Order, and normal events are RoutingStrategy.Bubble.
In this RoutedEvents there are a property Handle when it's true the system will stop to traverse the visual tree because someone used this event.

I found your code example interesting so I gave it a try... but I had to make a small modification for it to work properly in my stuff.
I had to change the 2nd "if" in the HitTestFilter method as follow:
if (element == null || element.IsHitTestVisible)
As you can see I removed the useless "element != this" at the end (you already tested that condition in the 1st "if") and I added "element == null" at the beginning.
Why? Because at some point during the filtering the parameter type was System.Windows.Media.ContainerVisual which doesn't inherit from UIElement and so element would be set to null and ContinueSkipSelfAndChildren would be returned. But I don't want to skip the children because my Canvas is contained inside its "Children" collection and UIElements I want to hittest with are contained in Canvas.

Just as #GuerreroTook said, you should solve this by using WPF's RoutedEvents (more information here.