How can I make Visual Studio 2010's “Add User Control” create a WPF control?

Question

I have a class library that I created using the "Class Library" project template. If I right-click on this library in Solution Explorer and select "Add > User Control", Visual Studio adds a WinForms UserControl. That's not what I want -- I want "Add > User Control" to add a WPF user control.

I've already added references to the WPF assemblies (WindowsBase, PresentationFramework, and PresentationCore), and I already have some WPF UserControls in this library, and everything compiles. My library does not have references to the WinForms assemblies (System.Drawing and System.Windows.Forms). But apparently the proper references are not enough of a clue for Visual Studio, because when I try Add > User Control, it adds the WinForms references to my project, and then creates a WinForms UserControl.

I can add a WPF User Control to my WPF Application project, and then move it into my library. But that's a pain, and I'd rather have it work properly in the first place.

I think I'm probably missing some kind of arcane XML element in my .csproj file that tells Visual Studio which designer to use by default, and if I add the right XML element with the right cryptic GUID, it will start working properly. If I could create a new WPF Control Library, I could probably compare the two project files and figure this out. However, I'm using Visual C# Express, which doesn't have a template for a WPF Control Library project, so I'm out of luck there.

What do I need to do to my Class Library's .csproj file so that VS2010's Add > New User Control will add a WPF UserControl?

Rick Sladkey Rick Sladkey · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-14T16:53:07

There are sub-projects class ids in the project file that affect the Visual Studio context menus and how the project behaves in general. The easiest thing to do is to recreate the project as a:

WPF User Control Library

instead of a "Class Library". It is possible if you already created the project to edit in the sub-project class ids by hand by opening the ".csproj" file in a text editor such as Visual Studio itself but its easy to cause more damage than you fix that way.

I believe but haven't test that another type of library will also work:

WPF Custom Control Library

which is intended to hold other types of controls than UserControl objects but being a WPF sub-project type the context menus also work correctly for the use case you are describing.

Edit:

For completeness, I've just tested how to manually add the sub-project GUIDS. Add this line to the first PropertyGroup in the .csproj file:

  <PropertyGroup>
    ...
    <ProjectTypeGuids>{60dc8134-eba5-43b8-bcc9-bb4bc16c2548};{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}</ProjectTypeGuids>
  </PropertyGroup>

Not tested with Visual Studio Express.

How can I make Visual Studio 2010's “Add User Control” create a WPF control?

1 Answers