Walkthrough: Hosting a Windows Forms Control in Windows Presentation Foundation

Article
11/16/2012

WPF provides many controls with a rich feature set. However, you may sometimes want to use Windows Forms controls on your WPF pages. For example, you may have a substantial investment in existing Windows Forms controls, or you may have a Windows Forms control that provides unique functionality.

This walkthrough shows you how to host a Windows Forms System.Windows.Forms.MaskedTextBox control on a WPF page by using code.

For a complete code listing of the tasks shown in this walkthrough, see Hosting a Windows Forms Control in Windows Presentation Foundation Sample.

Note The dialog boxes and menu commands you see might differ from those described in Help, depending on your active settings or edition. To change your settings, choose Import and Export Settings on the Tools menu. For more information, see Visual Studio Settings.

Prerequisites

You need the following components to complete this walkthrough:

Visual Studio 2008.

Hosting the Windows Forms Control

To host the MaskedTextBox control

Create a WPF Application project named HostingWfInWpf.
In Solution Explorer, add a reference to the WindowsFormsIntegration assembly, which is named WindowsFormsIntegration.dll.
In Solution Explorer, add a reference to the Windows Forms assembly, which is named System.Windows.Forms.dll.
Open Window1.xaml in the WPF Designer.

Replace the automatically generated XAML in Window1.xaml with the following XAML.

<Window x:Class="Window1"
    xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    Title="HostingWfInWpf" Height="300" Width="300"
    Loaded="WindowLoaded"
    >
  <Grid Name="grid1">

    </Grid>
</Window>

<Window x:Class="HostingWfInWpf.Window1"
    xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    Title="HostingWfInWpf"
    Loaded="WindowLoaded"
    >
    <Grid Name="grid1">

    </Grid>
</Window>

In the Code Editor, open Window1.xaml.cs.

Replace the code in Window1.xaml.cs with the following code.

Imports System
Imports System.Windows
Imports System.Windows.Controls
Imports System.Windows.Data
Imports System.Windows.Documents
Imports System.Windows.Media
Imports System.Windows.Media.Imaging
Imports System.Windows.Shapes

Imports System.Windows.Forms

' Interaction logic for Window1.xaml 
Partial Public Class Window1
    Inherits Window

    Public Sub New()
        InitializeComponent()
    End Sub 

    Private Sub WindowLoaded(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As RoutedEventArgs)
        ' Create the interop host control. 
        Dim host As New System.Windows.Forms.Integration.WindowsFormsHost()

        ' Create the MaskedTextBox control. 
        Dim mtbDate As New MaskedTextBox("00/00/0000")

        ' Assign the MaskedTextBox control as the host control's child.
        host.Child = mtbDate

        ' Add the interop host control to the Grid 
        ' control's collection of child controls. 
        Me.grid1.Children.Add(host)

    End Sub 'WindowLoaded

End Class

using System;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Data;
using System.Windows.Documents;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Shapes;

using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace HostingWfInWpf
{   
    public partial class Window1 : Window
    {
        public Window1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void WindowLoaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 
        {
            // Create the interop host control.
            System.Windows.Forms.Integration.WindowsFormsHost host =
                new System.Windows.Forms.Integration.WindowsFormsHost();

            // Create the MaskedTextBox control.
            MaskedTextBox mtbDate = new MaskedTextBox("00/00/0000");

            // Assign the MaskedTextBox control as the host control's child.
            host.Child = mtbDate;

            // Add the interop host control to the Grid 
            // control's collection of child controls. 
            this.grid1.Children.Add(host);
        }
    }
}

Share via

Walkthrough: Hosting a Windows Forms Control in Windows Presentation Foundation

Prerequisites

Hosting the Windows Forms Control

To host the MaskedTextBox control

See Also

Tasks

Concepts

Reference

Other Resources

Additional resources