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Update user control on Main Window from Page in another solution

Ok, I'm being really thick here and am having a few minor issues which are turning into major ones in my head:
I have a MainWindow that houses a tab control into which I have several "apps" sitting which all have their own solutions. I have built a neat "loading" control which is housed in the main window but is hidden and is only displayed when one of the displayed pages has a button clicked. However, I don't seem to be able to access the user control from the page.
As an example, I have an admin page which controls users in a database which wotks fine. When I click on the submit button I want to make the user control visible on the MainWindow and when the function is finished to hide the control. I know how to unhide and hide the control just not how to access it. I have attached a representation of the file structure below so you can see the issue I have accessing the MainWindow in the main solution from say the pageAdmin.xaml.
I have been googalizing this for a while and can't seem to find a solution that works. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I am open to any suggestions about how to handle this.
Andy

Just to be sure: what do you mean with "apps"? Do you have one WPF application which hosts different components?
Maybe PRISM (Microsoft Framework) is interesting for you. In PRISM you can dynamically load components from different dlls and host them in one WPF application. It has a build in messaging framwork which works very well and the diffetent dlls don't need any references among themselves.

WPF applacation window screen shot displayed on button

i have create a few WPF applications in visual studio, and now i would like to create a final application to run all of the created apps in the final application. i would like to know how i can create a layout that displays the apps that are running inside the final app as buttons that can be clicked and cause the app to expand and allow the user to work on that app and then when finished return back to the final app and see the other apps to choose from. I imagine it would look like a Google chrome blank page that allows you see your familiar webpages and click on them to load them up. Any help or advice on what i should focus on to implement this would be much appreciated.
Thank you for taking the time to read over this.

Consider using a VisualBrush this takes other WPF UI (your "apps") and uses their UI as a brush for another UI element.
Raj Kumar has a simple article called Visual Brush in WPF for details.
The bit you probably want is at the bottom where he shows you rendering a controls content in another control. The magic being binding the controls visual to the element name whos UI it should render.

wpf application which shows all forms in one window

hi I want to make a wpf c# application which shows every form(Ex:- user registration, reports , etc..)in one window in other words I want to make an application which have one window and every user control appears and closed there when I want just like games in some games like middle of honor warfighter they have one window and if we chose option option buttons appear in the same window and if we chose graphics that graphic page content appear in that same window.
and I want to know is there any frame work or special method is there which I should fallow other than putting wpf controls one over another and changing there visibility and isopen status.If there is any examples please give me a link

You can use ContentControl for holding any element. also PRISM is best approach.

You can use WPF Popup forms below are some links for more info:-
http://www.dzone.com/articles/understanding-wpf-popups
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/Blogs/11700/

Take a look at this MDI Control. It helps you to show any kind of usercontrol in one container as window.

How would i make another application's child window into a tab? (C#)

For instance, I have an application that has a main window and then child windows inside of it.
http://screenshots.rd.to/sn/e3hek/sapienfullwindow.png
http://screenshots.rd.to/sn/e3hek/appscreen8.png
What i need is to grab each individual child window of that application, and display them as tabs in my application, or on a panel's handle.
I already have code to kidnap the application and put it into mine, and it works great.

MDI support is already present in the C#. So the first screenshot is using the MDI option.
The second screenshot is using tabbed windows. Now you have two options:
Use this opensource library DockPanelSuite which will let you have tabs in your application. something similar to visual studio interface. You can create forms and then tab it based on your needs. You can even dock them anywhere in the parent form by drag and drop. Just like in visual studio.
The second option is to create a form with tab control covering the whole windows. There you create tabs using the resource editor and hide/show based on the forms you want to display to the end user.
In my opinion, use the first option which gives you lot more customization. Also if you use the dockpanel, you can switch between the views shown in your first screenshot and second one. So user has better control as to how he wants to view. Dockpanel is free to use even in commerical apps and comes with source code. So you can either use the dll or directly incorporate the code in your application.

WPF C# UI : New Window or Tab?

Our WPF application in the current design opens new windows for list screen.We don't have restrictions on the number of windows you open etc.We are using a ribbon control and well it has tab support.Which is better a new window or a tab? (With windows 7 having a better group of window management etc) Should I go in for tab or leave it as window. I can't make the detail screen tab since well the user click of a item in the grid to select and edit.Any valid suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Tabs in a Ribbon shouldn't change the view. The Ribbon is an enhanced toolbar, not a view changer.
If your using the MS Ribbon via OfficeUI, then there is a stipulation in the design guidelines that the view should never change the appearance of the ribbon (apart from loading context tabs) and that they ribbon should never wholesale change the view.
In regards to your question, do you mean that you have list/grid and you want a view to be able to change the data in the row. Eg. they double click a row, a view appears that gives them the ability to edit that row?

The right way is to ask your users what they like more. If you can't ask users, ask yourself - what you find more convenient - to open\close windows or switch between tabs. I wouldn't rely on win7 task bar as it's grouping behavior can be disabled or users may use another OS. Also I would suggest to check Microsoft guidelines for using ribbon.

Do you need to see more than one pane's content at once? Windows allow this, but tabs do not.
Tabs make management of the various windows easier at the expense of some flexibility.
Are your users likely to be running on multiple windows?
It is really hard to give a confident answer to you on this one without knowing more about your application and your user's requirements.

Windows 7 displays multiple previews on grouped windows of the application, however in case of tab, like IE, you will have to write quite a good custom code to show your tabs in preview of Windows 7 taskbar, which in case of Multiple Windows, it will be done automatically.
Not only that, Windows 7 also lets you put seven toolbar buttons on the preview windows, very few people knows about it because no application currently does it.
For tabs you will need to do extra programming to support multi window preview.
So its better to stay with multi window solution for now.
However in case of IE, if you try to use Windows 7 taskbar, the tabs dont align themselves in correct order of what is displayed in preview, it could be bug, but yes there might be certain limitations because when user chooses the tab to preview you will not be able to show them preview unless you make it active and thats why its little bad.

I recommend playing with Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome if you want to see tabs at their finest.
Notice that tabs can be teared out into a separate window and windows can be docked as tabs.