showing WPF window from other process in Modal Mode

4
votes

I have two WPF application and one process manager that pass data from first WPF application to second WPF application and vice-versa. In one use case I have to show the window(main window) of the first application over the window(main window) of the second application in modal mode. So the window of the second WPF application will be disabled and on top of that window from first WPF application will be shown. Required behavior is same as showing a window in modal mode in a single WPF application. Any idea how can I access the Window of one WPF application from another WPF application??

In the case of Winform application we have done it by passing the Window Handle(intPtr) to another application and while showing the window in modal mode use the handle like:

System.Windows.Forms.Form.ShowDialog(System.Windows.Forms.IWin32Window)

How similar thing can be achieved in the case of WPF application? Thanks in advance.

2
wpf
Is this what you want? – Johan Larsson
no. my requirement is different – kamal nayan

2 Answers

4
votes

=========================== BEGIN UPDATE =====================================

Code:

using System.Windows; // Window, WindowStartupLocation
using System.Windows.Interop; // WindowInteropHelper
using System.Runtime.InteropServices; // DllImport
...

// Instantiate the owned WPF window
CenteredWindow cw = new CenteredWindow();
// Get the handle to the non-WPF owner window
IntPtr hWnd = ...

CenteredWindow cw = new CenteredWindow();

EnableWindow(hWnd, false); // disable parent window
try
{
    // Set the owned WPF window’s owner with the non-WPF owner window
    WindowInteropHelper helper = new WindowInteropHelper(cw);
    helper.Owner = hWnd;
    cw.ShowDialog();
}
finally
{
    EnableWindow(hWnd, true); // enable parent window
}

...
[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
private static extern bool EnableWindow(IntPtr hwnd, bool enable);

With the help of the MS Connect Link in @kamal-nayan 's comments, I modified my code as above, it works well for me.

The key is to disable the parent window, and when your modal dialog is closed, enable the parent window.

=========================== END UPDATE =====================================

using System.Windows; // Window, WindowStartupLocation
using System.Windows.Interop; // WindowInteropHelper
...
// Instantiate the owned WPF window
CenteredWindow cw = new CenteredWindow();

// Get the handle to the non-WPF owner window
IntPtr ownerWindowHandle = ...; // Get hWnd for non-WPF window

// Set the owned WPF window’s owner with the non-WPF owner window
WindowInteropHelper helper = new WindowInteropHelper(cw);
helper.Owner = ownerWindowHandle;
cw.ShowDialog();

This is the only solution I found. It's not real Modal, i.e. you could still activate the parent, but the good thing is that the child window is still on top of the parent.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/wpfsdk/archive/2007/04/03/centering-wpf-windows-with-wpf-and-non-wpf-owner-windows.aspx

0
votes
_parameters = new HwndSourceParameters("myWindow");

_parameters.WindowStyle = WindowStyles.WS_SYSMENU | WindowStyles.WS_VISIBLE | WindowStyles.WS_CAPTION | WindowStyles.WS_CHILD | WindowStyles.WS_POPUP;
_parameters.SetPosition(50, 50);

_parameters.ParentWindow = ParentWindowHandle;           
_hwndSource = new HwndSource(_parameters);

_hwndSource.SizeToContent = SizeToContent.WidthAndHeight;
_hwndSource.RootVisual = modalWindowContent;

This is how I was able to show the window from one process as modal to window from other process.