WPF ListBox setting focus to first item after losing focus

Question

Problem: I'm having trouble managing focus and item selection in a WPF ListBox with an embedded ListBox and some custom selection management in the code behind.

Background: The "parent" ListBox is assigned a DataTemplate containing a "child" ListBox. I have added code to navigate using the up and down arrow keys from the parent ListBoxItem to the child items and from the child items back to the parent items.

When navigating back to a parent item which is not the first item in the first level list box the focus is always set to the first item and it is selected even though it is set in the program to a non-first item (e.g. parent item #2). I have traced through the code and the focus and selection is set to a non-first item but then another event to select and set the focus to the first item is always received.

There was another case on stackoverflow which was similar to what I am experiencing. The case is wpf listview lost the focus I tried all of the answers and responses in this case and none of them worked.

Does anyone have insight into why I can't programmatically select a non-first element in the parent ListBox?

I have a similar problem, did you find any solution? I tried with ((ListBoxItem)ItemContainerGenerator.ContainerFromItem(SelectedItem)).Focus() But did not succeed — Cinaird

Daniel Moore Daniel Moore · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-09T20:36:47

Try using ListBox.IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem = true then working with the list's collection view (if you're not explicitly creating one, you can use CollectionViewSource.GetDefaultView) to set the current item (ICollectionView.MoveCurrentTo()).

Selectors have a much more preferable method of dealing with selected items when working with the collection view, rather than SelectedItem.

WPF ListBox setting focus to first item after losing focus

2 Answers