WPF Chrome

NEW POST: A few changes that I'd like to see

Ninfendo — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:55:59 GMT

JoeCastro wrote:
There's a strange feedback loop that happens with the Window's template anf SizeToContent. It can be fixed by changing the project to not use the template and instead apply a negative margin to the root element.

Hi Joe,

Awesome work on the Chrome helper, it is really useful. Can you provide some more details on how to get SizeToContent to work? The template seems really important, so how can you make this work without a Template?

NEW POST: A few changes that I'd like to see

JoeCastro — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:14:02 GMT

There's a strange feedback loop that happens with the Window's template anf SizeToContent. It can be fixed by changing the project to not use the template and instead apply a negative margin to the root element.

NEW POST: Imprecise Border Rendering

Aaron_Murrell — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:41:25 GMT

Update - it seems that the sloppy border issue is only present when using rounded corners.

NEW POST: Imprecise Border Rendering

Aaron_Murrell — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:35:29 GMT

I've been playing with this sample for a while now and have noticed that when applying a 1 or 2 pixel border to the window it is not getting rendered as one would expect. It is more obvious when you change the border color to black and give it a thickness of 1. Specifically, the right and bottom borders seem to be less thick than the top and left borders. The corners get pretty sloppy too. Any ideas as to why this happens? Other than that, its a vey good sample.

NEW POST: A few changes that I'd like to see

LeeCampbell — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:28:22 GMT

Good to see a project like this on the web. Similar to the SDK example; however i have yet to see a full implementation that handles SizeToContent="WidthAndHeight"

Any ideas. I will try to get something working myself but thought I would throw it out there.

NEW POST: Location Bug

JoeCastro — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:35:28 GMT

Probably not for this version; it's being considered for future ones though. If you have feedback about what should be changed if we were to put it in the framework this is the right place to voice that.

NEW POST: Location Bug

RichardP — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:04:40 GMT

Cool beans thanks for the quick response. By any chance is access to the window chrome going to be something built into WPF for the next release?

JoeCastro wrote:
You're running into a bug in WPF. The Window class uses AdjustWindowRect in some places to figure out what the non-client dimensions should be based on the WindowStyle and then uses that for some calculations. In particular you'll see it with restore from maximize and the Top/Left properties are incorrect (in all cases the values are offset by the normal non-client dimensions).

There's not really a good way to work around this. If you just want to programmatically place the window then the best you can do is p/invoke SetWindowPos and not use Top/Left/Width/Height. For the issue with restoring the window I think you'll have to watch for WM_SIZE notifying you that the window is being maximized and then cache the data yourself to correct for what WPF does after the restore. That second workaround in particular isn't very easy to do.

The good news is this issue should be fixed in the next release of WPF.

NEW POST: Location Bug

JoeCastro — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:51:17 GMT

You're running into a bug in WPF. The Window class uses AdjustWindowRect in some places to figure out what the non-client dimensions should be based on the WindowStyle and then uses that for some calculations. In particular you'll see it with restore from maximize and the Top/Left properties are incorrect (in all cases the values are offset by the normal non-client dimensions).

There's not really a good way to work around this. If you just want to programmatically place the window then the best you can do is p/invoke SetWindowPos and not use Top/Left/Width/Height. For the issue with restoring the window I think you'll have to watch for WM_SIZE notifying you that the window is being maximized and then cache the data yourself to correct for what WPF does after the restore. That second workaround in particular isn't very easy to do.

The good news is this issue should be fixed in the next release of WPF.

NEW POST: Location Bug

RichardP — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:32:35 GMT

This article and code are very good and I'm planning on using it in several upcoming projects at my work.

I have moved the templates from using the default (read: forced) template to using any template that is applied to the window and it seems to work well.

I'm having an issue with resizing the window though. If I move the window to the top left of the screen so that it is either at location 0,0 or -,- then when I maximize the window and then restore the window it will "jump" up to a negative number that makes it almost impossible to grab the title bar. I have been looking for a solution to this but don't know the win32 hooks well enough yet to fix it. Can anyone help me out?

NEW POST: A few changes that I'd like to see

JoeCastro — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:27:08 GMT

alive-ish (although I'm still not getting mails when this thread updates ... :( ).
I have some updates I've made based on user feedback. I haven't had time to test them enough that I want to post them yet.
Generally I don't expect to update this too much as it's mostly a proof of concept demonstrating the technique described in the SDK blog. If you have questions about the technique itself or the implementation I'm happy to answer questions through this forum or direct email.

NEW POST: A few changes that I'd like to see

ftballguy45 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:15:45 GMT

Hey is this project still alive? Its pretty cool.
Thanks!
Justin

NEW POST: A few changes that I'd like to see

JoeCastro — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:56:11 GMT

Hi,
Sorry for the belated response. I don't get notifications when there's a new discussion and hadn't looked here in a while.

That's a good suggestion. I'm addressing this along with a few other changes to make the project work better with different styled windows. I'm still working out some of the API quirks, but I'll probably publish it here soon.

Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to see. The title sounds like you may have others :)

NEW POST: A few changes that I'd like to see

adurkin — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:24:58 GMT

I think this is very useful. There is one modification I'd like to see that would make it more in line with WPF. The first thing is to not require the use of your template. I think it makes more sense to allow people to override the template (keeping in mind the required parts) and that way the content of the window is still the content and not the content plus the chrome.

NEW POST: Custom caption buttons

chaiguy1337 — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:31:30 GMT

I found a pretty nice looking XAML button sample, that would work well for caption buttons:

http://blogs.msdn.com/mgrayson/archive/2007/02/16/creating-a-glass-button-the-complete-tutorial.aspx

For those interested.

NEW POST: Custom caption buttons

chaiguy1337 — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:10:29 GMT

Thanks! That gives me some better resources to work with. I wasn't including the term "gel" in my searches.

NEW POST: Custom caption buttons

JoeCastro — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:44:49 GMT

The ones I used are pretty ugly, but really so is the frame and border :) Unfortunately I didn't get any designer resources for this project.

For the most part, applications I've seen using these techniques don't try to emulate the system caption buttons too closely (except for Office, and then only while they're getting the DWM to render them). Instead they use something that blends better with the rest of their custom non-client area. The only exception I can think of is recent versions of Windows Live Messenger, where they always use the Aero-style buttons, but they just use static images rather than anything vector based. To get that you can just use a screen shot.

You should be able to get something close to the Aero look with XAML. Searching online for "WPF Gel buttons" yields plenty of examples of getting a similar effect. If you then make the buttons' content a Path drawing everything should scale appropriately also.

Hope that helps,
-Joe

NEW POST: Custom caption buttons

chaiguy1337 — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 05:55:33 GMT

We need some resources/examples on how to actually DRAW custom caption buttons. The ones provided in the sample (although nice to illustrate the potential) are really quite awful looking.

I've spent a good while today scouring the web for some kind of way to draw a vista-like close box in xaml, and have found literally next to nothing, so some tips and pointers would be greatly appreciated--maybe even some sample drawings?

UPDATED WIKI: Home

JoeCastro — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 02:02:37 GMT

This is a project to accompany the WPF SDK blog article about how to customize the window chrome in WPF apps.
http://blogs.msdn.com/wpfsdk/archive/2008/09/08/custom-window-chrome-in-wpf.aspx

It has a sample project with source that implements the techniques described in the article, as well as a sample application (an address book using Vista's Windows Contacts) that uses the Chrome project to create a UI similar to what Office 2007 does with its caption area.

The AddressBook.xaml file in the sample project demonstrates how to use the ChromeHelper object. Applications written using the ChromeHelper should work on Vista and XP, though the Glass options will not have any effect on systems without DWM composition enabled.

Feedback is appreciated. Any questions about, or issues with, the design or implementation can be posted to the Discussions tab.

Updates since release:
2008 Sept 12:
Updated the source (and binaries) to correct a bad declaration of attached DependencyProperties. Aside from being wrong, this occasionally caused issues when loaded in Blend.

UPDATED RELEASE: ChromeHelper 1.0 (Sep 08, 2008)

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 02:01:05 GMT

UPDATED RELEASE: ChromeHelper 1.0 (Sep 08, 2008)

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:47:21 GMT