[c#] Set focus on TextBox in WPF from view model

I have a TextBox and a Button in my view.

Now I am checking a condition upon button click and if the condition turns out to be false, displaying the message to the user, and then I have to set the cursor to the TextBox control.

if (companyref == null)
{
    var cs = new Lipper.Nelson.AdminClient.Main.Views.ContactPanels.CompanyAssociation(); 

    MessageBox.Show("Company does not exist.", "Error", MessageBoxButton.OK,
                    MessageBoxImage.Exclamation);

    cs.txtCompanyID.Focusable = true;

    System.Windows.Input.Keyboard.Focus(cs.txtCompanyID);
}

The above code is in the ViewModel.

The CompanyAssociation is the view name.

But the cursor is not getting set in the TextBox.

The xaml is:

<igEditors:XamTextEditor Name="txtCompanyID" 
                         KeyDown="xamTextEditorAllowOnlyNumeric_KeyDown"
                         ValueChanged="txtCompanyID_ValueChanged"
                         Text="{Binding Company.CompanyId,
                                        Mode=TwoWay,
                                        UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}"
                         Width="{Binding ActualWidth, ElementName=border}"
                         Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="0"
                         VerticalAlignment="Top"
                         HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"
                         Margin="0,5,0,0"
                         IsEnabled="{Binding Path=IsEditable}"/>

<Button Template="{StaticResource buttonTemp1}"
        Command="{Binding ContactCommand}"
        CommandParameter="searchCompany"
        Content="Search"
        Width="80"
        Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="2"
        VerticalAlignment="Top"
        Margin="0"
        HorizontalAlignment="Left"
        IsEnabled="{Binding Path=IsEditable}"/>

System.Windows.Forms.Application.DoEvents();
Keyboard.Focus(tbxLastName);

In my case, the FocusExtension didn't work until I change the method OnIsFocusedPropertyChanged. The original one was working only in debug when a break point stopped the process. At runtime, the process is too quick and nothing happend. With this little modification and the help of our friend Task, this is working fine in both scenarios.

private static void OnIsFocusedPropertyChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
  var uie = (UIElement)d;
  if ((bool)e.NewValue)
  {
    var action = new Action(() => uie.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke((Action)(() => uie.Focus())));
    Task.Factory.StartNew(action);
  }
}

An alternative approach based on @Sheridan answer here

 <TextBox Text="{Binding SomeText, Mode=TwoWay, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}">
        <TextBox.Style>
            <Style>
                <Style.Triggers>
                    <DataTrigger Binding="{Binding SomeTextIsFocused, Mode=TwoWay, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}" Value="True">
                        <Setter Property="FocusManager.FocusedElement" Value="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource Self}}" />
                    </DataTrigger>
                </Style.Triggers>
            </Style>
        </TextBox.Style>
    </TextBox>

In your view model set up your binding in the usual way and then set the SomeTextIsFocused to true to set the focus on your text box

This is an old thread, but there doesn't seem to be an answer with code that addresses the issues with Anavanka's accepted answer: it doesn't work if you set the property in the viewmodel to false, or if you set your property to true, the user manually clicks on something else, and then you set it to true again. I couldn't get Zamotic's solution to work reliably in these cases either.

Pulling together some of the discussions above gives me the code below which does address these issues I think:

public static class FocusExtension
{
    public static bool GetIsFocused(DependencyObject obj)
    {
        return (bool)obj.GetValue(IsFocusedProperty);
    }

    public static void SetIsFocused(DependencyObject obj, bool value)
    {
        obj.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, value);
    }

    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsFocusedProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached(
         "IsFocused", typeof(bool), typeof(FocusExtension),
         new UIPropertyMetadata(false, null, OnCoerceValue));

    private static object OnCoerceValue(DependencyObject d, object baseValue)
    {
        if ((bool)baseValue)
            ((UIElement)d).Focus();
        else if (((UIElement) d).IsFocused)
            Keyboard.ClearFocus();
        return ((bool)baseValue);
    }
}

Having said that, this is still complex for something that can be done in one line in codebehind, and CoerceValue isn't really meant to be used in this way, so maybe codebehind is the way to go.

Nobody seems to have included the final step to make it easy to update attributes via binded variables. Here's what I came up with. Let me know if there is a better way of doing this.

XAML

    <TextBox x:Name="txtLabel"
      Text="{Binding Label}"
      local:FocusExtension.IsFocused="{Binding txtLabel_IsFocused, Mode=TwoWay}" 
     />

    <Button x:Name="butEdit" Content="Edit"
        Height="40"  
        IsEnabled="{Binding butEdit_IsEnabled}"                        
        Command="{Binding cmdCapsuleEdit.Command}"                            
     />   

ViewModel

    public class LoginModel : ViewModelBase
    {

    public string txtLabel_IsFocused { get; set; }                 
    public string butEdit_IsEnabled { get; set; }                


    public void SetProperty(string PropertyName, string value)
    {
        System.Reflection.PropertyInfo propertyInfo = this.GetType().GetProperty(PropertyName);
        propertyInfo.SetValue(this, Convert.ChangeType(value, propertyInfo.PropertyType), null);
        OnPropertyChanged(PropertyName);
    }                


    private void Example_function(){

        SetProperty("butEdit_IsEnabled", "False");
        SetProperty("txtLabel_IsFocused", "True");        
    }

    }

I think the best way is to keep the MVVM principle clean, so basically you must use the Messenger Class provided with the MVVM Light and here is how to use it:

in your viewmodel(exampleViewModel.cs):write the following

 Messenger.Default.Send<string>("focus", "DoFocus");

now in your View.cs(not the XAML the view.xaml.cs) write the following in the constructor

 public MyView()
        {
            InitializeComponent();

            Messenger.Default.Register<string>(this, "DoFocus", doFocus);
        }
        public void doFocus(string msg)
        {
            if (msg == "focus")
                this.txtcode.Focus();
        }

that method owrks just fine and with less code and maintaining MVVM standards

public class DummyViewModel : ViewModelBase
    {
        private bool isfocused= false;
        public bool IsFocused
        {
            get
            {
                return isfocused;
            }
            set
            {
                isfocused= value;
                OnPropertyChanged("IsFocused");
            }
        }
    }

You could use the ViewCommand design pattern. It describes a method for the MVVM design pattern to control a View from a ViewModel with commands.

I've implemented it based on King A.Majid's suggestion to use the MVVM Light Messenger class. The ViewCommandManager class handles invoking commands in connected views. It's basically the other direction of regular Commands, for these cases when a ViewModel needs to do some action in its View. It uses reflection like data-bound commands and WeakReferences to avoid memory leaks.

http://dev.unclassified.de/source/viewcommand (also published on CodeProject)

I found Crucial's solution to the IsVisible problem very useful. It didn't completely solve my problem, but some extra code following the same pattern for the IsEnabled pattern did.

To the IsFocusedChanged method I added:

    if (!fe.IsEnabled)
    {
        fe.IsEnabledChanged += fe_IsEnabledChanged;
    }

And here's the handler:

private static void fe_IsEnabledChanged(object sender, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
    var fe = (FrameworkElement)sender;
    if (fe.IsEnabled && (bool)((FrameworkElement)sender).GetValue(IsFocusedProperty))
    {
        fe.IsEnabledChanged -= fe_IsEnabledChanged;
        fe.Focus();
    }
}

After implementing the accepted answer I did run across an issue that when navigating views with Prism the TextBox would still not get focus. A minor change to the PropertyChanged handler resolved it

    private static void OnIsFocusedPropertyChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        var uie = (UIElement)d;
        if ((bool)e.NewValue)
        {
            uie.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(DispatcherPriority.Input, new Action(() =>
            {
                uie.Focus();
            }));
        }
    }

I know this question has been answered a thousand times over by now, but I made some edits to Anvaka's contribution that I think will help others that had similar issues that I had.

Firstly, I changed the above Attached Property like so:

public static class FocusExtension
{
    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsFocusedProperty = 
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("IsFocused", typeof(bool?), typeof(FocusExtension), new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(IsFocusedChanged){BindsTwoWayByDefault = true});

    public static bool? GetIsFocused(DependencyObject element)
    {
        if (element == null)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("element");
        }

        return (bool?)element.GetValue(IsFocusedProperty);
    }

    public static void SetIsFocused(DependencyObject element, bool? value)
    {
        if (element == null)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("element");
        }

        element.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, value);
    }

    private static void IsFocusedChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        var fe = (FrameworkElement)d;

        if (e.OldValue == null)
        {
            fe.GotFocus += FrameworkElement_GotFocus;
            fe.LostFocus += FrameworkElement_LostFocus;
        }

        if (!fe.IsVisible)
        {
            fe.IsVisibleChanged += new DependencyPropertyChangedEventHandler(fe_IsVisibleChanged);
        }

        if (e.NewValue != null && (bool)e.NewValue)
        {
            fe.Focus();
        }
    }

    private static void fe_IsVisibleChanged(object sender, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        var fe = (FrameworkElement)sender;
        if (fe.IsVisible && (bool)fe.GetValue(IsFocusedProperty))
        {
            fe.IsVisibleChanged -= fe_IsVisibleChanged;
            fe.Focus();
        }
    }

    private static void FrameworkElement_GotFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        ((FrameworkElement)sender).SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, true);
    }

    private static void FrameworkElement_LostFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        ((FrameworkElement)sender).SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, false);
    }
}

My reason for adding the visibility references were tabs. Apparently if you used the attached property on any other tab outside of the initially visible tab, the attached property didn't work until you manually focused the control.

The other obstacle was creating a more elegant way of resetting the underlying property to false when it lost focus. That's where the lost focus events came in.

<TextBox            
    Text="{Binding Description}"
    FocusExtension.IsFocused="{Binding IsFocused}"/>

If there's a better way to handle the visibility issue, please let me know.

Note: Thanks to Apfelkuacha for the suggestion of putting the BindsTwoWayByDefault in the DependencyProperty. I had done that long ago in my own code, but never updated this post. The Mode=TwoWay is no longer necessary in the WPF code due to this change.

Anvakas brilliant code is for Windows Desktop applications. If you are like me and needed the same solution for Windows Store apps this code might be handy:

public static class FocusExtension
{
    public static bool GetIsFocused(DependencyObject obj)
    {
        return (bool)obj.GetValue(IsFocusedProperty);
    }


    public static void SetIsFocused(DependencyObject obj, bool value)
    {
        obj.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, value);
    }


    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsFocusedProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached(
         "IsFocused", typeof(bool), typeof(FocusExtension),
         new PropertyMetadata(false, OnIsFocusedPropertyChanged));


    private static void OnIsFocusedPropertyChanged(DependencyObject d,
        DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        if ((bool)e.NewValue)
        {
            var uie = d as Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.Control;

            if( uie != null )
            {
                uie.Focus(FocusState.Programmatic);
            }
        }
    }
}

Just do this:

<Window x:class...
   ...
   ...
   FocusManager.FocusedElement="{Binding ElementName=myTextBox}"
>
<Grid>
<TextBox Name="myTextBox"/>
...

I use WPF / Caliburn Micro a found that "dfaivre" has made a general and workable solution here: http://caliburnmicro.codeplex.com/discussions/222892

For those trying to use Anvaka's solution above, I was having issues with the binding only working the first time, as lostfocus would not update the property to false. You can manually set the property to false and then true every time, but a better solution could be to do something like this in your property:

bool _isFocused = false;
    public bool IsFocused 
    {
        get { return _isFocused ; }
        set
        {
            _isFocused = false;
            _isFocused = value;
            base.OnPropertyChanged("IsFocused ");
        }
    }

This way you only ever need to set it to true, and it will get focus.

I have found solution by editing code as per following. There is no need to set Binding property first False then True.

public static class FocusExtension
{

    public static bool GetIsFocused(DependencyObject obj)
    {
        return (bool)obj.GetValue(IsFocusedProperty);
    }


    public static void SetIsFocused(DependencyObject obj, bool value)
    {
        obj.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, value);
    }


    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsFocusedProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached(
         "IsFocused", typeof(bool), typeof(FocusExtension),
         new UIPropertyMetadata(false, OnIsFocusedPropertyChanged));


    private static void OnIsFocusedPropertyChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        if (d != null && d is Control)
        {
            var _Control = d as Control;
            if ((bool)e.NewValue)
            {
                // To set false value to get focus on control. if we don't set value to False then we have to set all binding
                //property to first False then True to set focus on control.
                OnLostFocus(_Control, null);
                _Control.Focus(); // Don't care about false values.
            }
        }
    }

    private static void OnLostFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        if (sender != null && sender is Control)
        {
            (sender as Control).SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, false);
        }
    }
}

For Silverlight:

using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Interactivity;

namespace MyProject.Behaviors
{
    public class FocusBehavior : Behavior<Control>
    {
        protected override void OnAttached()
        {
            this.AssociatedObject.Loaded += AssociatedObject_Loaded;
            base.OnAttached();
        }

        private void AssociatedObject_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            this.AssociatedObject.Loaded -= AssociatedObject_Loaded;
            if (this.HasInitialFocus || this.IsFocused)
            {
                this.GotFocus();
            }
        }

        private void GotFocus()
        {
            this.AssociatedObject.Focus();
            if (this.IsSelectAll)
            {
                if (this.AssociatedObject is TextBox)
                {
                    (this.AssociatedObject as TextBox).SelectAll();
                }
                else if (this.AssociatedObject is PasswordBox)
                {
                    (this.AssociatedObject as PasswordBox).SelectAll();
                }
                else if (this.AssociatedObject is RichTextBox)
                {
                    (this.AssociatedObject as RichTextBox).SelectAll();
                }
            }
        }

        public static readonly DependencyProperty IsFocusedProperty =
            DependencyProperty.Register(
                "IsFocused",
                typeof(bool),
                typeof(FocusBehavior),
                new PropertyMetadata(false, 
                    (d, e) => 
                    {
                        if ((bool)e.NewValue)
                        {
                            ((FocusBehavior)d).GotFocus();
                        }
                    }));

        public bool IsFocused
        {
            get { return (bool)GetValue(IsFocusedProperty); }
            set { SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, value); }
        }

        public static readonly DependencyProperty HasInitialFocusProperty =
            DependencyProperty.Register(
                "HasInitialFocus",
                typeof(bool),
                typeof(FocusBehavior),
                new PropertyMetadata(false, null));

        public bool HasInitialFocus
        {
            get { return (bool)GetValue(HasInitialFocusProperty); }
            set { SetValue(HasInitialFocusProperty, value); }
        }

        public static readonly DependencyProperty IsSelectAllProperty =
            DependencyProperty.Register(
                "IsSelectAll",
                typeof(bool),
                typeof(FocusBehavior),
                new PropertyMetadata(false, null));

        public bool IsSelectAll
        {
            get { return (bool)GetValue(IsSelectAllProperty); }
            set { SetValue(IsSelectAllProperty, value); }
        }

    }
}

LoginViewModel.cs:

    public class LoginModel : ViewModelBase
    {
        ....

        private bool _EmailFocus = false;
        public bool EmailFocus
        {
            get
            {
                return _EmailFocus;
            }
            set
            {
                if (value)
                {
                    _EmailFocus = false;
                    RaisePropertyChanged("EmailFocus");
                }
                _EmailFocus = value;
                RaisePropertyChanged("EmailFocus");
            }
        }
       ...
   }

Login.xaml:

xmlns:i="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/2010/interactivity"
xmlns:beh="clr-namespace:MyProject.Behaviors"

<TextBox Text="{Binding Email, Mode=TwoWay, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}">
    <i:Interaction.Behaviors>
        <beh:FocusBehavior IsFocused="{Binding EmailFocus}" IsSelectAll="True"/>
    </i:Interaction.Behaviors>
</TextBox>

OR

<TextBox Text="{Binding Email, Mode=TwoWay, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}">
    <i:Interaction.Behaviors>
        <beh:FocusBehavior HasInitialFocus="True" IsSelectAll="True"/>
    </i:Interaction.Behaviors>
</TextBox>

To set the focus should just do it in code:

EmailFocus = true;

Remember that this plugin is part of an html page, so other controls in the page might have the focus

if (!Application.Current.IsRunningOutOfBrowser)
{
    System.Windows.Browser.HtmlPage.Plugin.Focus();
}

The problem is that once the IsUserNameFocused is set to true, it will never be false. This solves it by handling the GotFocus and LostFocus for the FrameworkElement.

I was having trouble with the source code formatting so here is a link

None of these worked for me exactly, but for the benefit of others, this is what I ended up writing based on some of the code already provided here.

Usage would be as follows:

<TextBox ... h:FocusBehavior.IsFocused="True"/>

And the implementation would be as follows:

/// <summary>
/// Behavior allowing to put focus on element from the view model in a MVVM implementation.
/// </summary>
public static class FocusBehavior
{
    #region Dependency Properties
    /// <summary>
    /// <c>IsFocused</c> dependency property.
    /// </summary>
    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsFocusedProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("IsFocused", typeof(bool?),
            typeof(FocusBehavior), new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(IsFocusedChanged));
    /// <summary>
    /// Gets the <c>IsFocused</c> property value.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="element">The element.</param>
    /// <returns>Value of the <c>IsFocused</c> property or <c>null</c> if not set.</returns>
    public static bool? GetIsFocused(DependencyObject element)
    {
        if (element == null)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("element");
        }
        return (bool?)element.GetValue(IsFocusedProperty);
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// Sets the <c>IsFocused</c> property value.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="element">The element.</param>
    /// <param name="value">The value.</param>
    public static void SetIsFocused(DependencyObject element, bool? value)
    {
        if (element == null)
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("element");
        }
        element.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, value);
    }
    #endregion Dependency Properties

    #region Event Handlers
    /// <summary>
    /// Determines whether the value of the dependency property <c>IsFocused</c> has change.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="d">The dependency object.</param>
    /// <param name="e">The <see cref="System.Windows.DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs"/> instance containing the event data.</param>
    private static void IsFocusedChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        // Ensure it is a FrameworkElement instance.
        var fe = d as FrameworkElement;
        if (fe != null && e.OldValue == null && e.NewValue != null && (bool)e.NewValue)
        {
            // Attach to the Loaded event to set the focus there. If we do it here it will
            // be overridden by the view rendering the framework element.
            fe.Loaded += FrameworkElementLoaded;
        }
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// Sets the focus when the framework element is loaded and ready to receive input.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="sender">The sender.</param>
    /// <param name="e">The <see cref="System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs"/> instance containing the event data.</param>
    private static void FrameworkElementLoaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        // Ensure it is a FrameworkElement instance.
        var fe = sender as FrameworkElement;
        if (fe != null)
        {
            // Remove the event handler registration.
            fe.Loaded -= FrameworkElementLoaded;
            // Set the focus to the given framework element.
            fe.Focus();
            // Determine if it is a text box like element.
            var tb = fe as TextBoxBase;
            if (tb != null)
            {
                // Select all text to be ready for replacement.
                tb.SelectAll();
            }
        }
    }
    #endregion Event Handlers
}

First off i would like to thank Avanka for helping me solve my focus problem. There is however a bug in the code he posted, namely in the line: if (e.OldValue == null)

The problem I had was that if you first click in your view and focus the control, e.oldValue is no longer null. Then when you set the variable to focus the control for the first time, this results in the lostfocus and gotfocus handlers not being set. My solution to this was as follows:

public static class ExtensionFocus
    {
    static ExtensionFocus()
        {
        BoundElements = new List<string>();
        }

    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsFocusedProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("IsFocused", typeof(bool?),
        typeof(ExtensionFocus), new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(false, IsFocusedChanged));

    private static List<string> BoundElements;

    public static bool? GetIsFocused(DependencyObject element)
        {
        if (element == null)
            {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("ExtensionFocus GetIsFocused called with null element");
            }
        return (bool?)element.GetValue(IsFocusedProperty);
        }

    public static void SetIsFocused(DependencyObject element, bool? value)
        {
        if (element == null)
            {
            throw new ArgumentNullException("ExtensionFocus SetIsFocused called with null element");
            }
        element.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, value);
        }

    private static void IsFocusedChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
        {
        var fe = (FrameworkElement)d;

        // OLD LINE:
        // if (e.OldValue == null)
        // TWO NEW LINES:
        if (BoundElements.Contains(fe.Name) == false)
            {
            BoundElements.Add(fe.Name);
            fe.LostFocus += OnLostFocus;
            fe.GotFocus += OnGotFocus;
            }           


        if (!fe.IsVisible)
            {
            fe.IsVisibleChanged += new DependencyPropertyChangedEventHandler(fe_IsVisibleChanged);
            }

        if ((bool)e.NewValue)
            {
            fe.Focus();             
            }
        }

    private static void fe_IsVisibleChanged(object sender, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
        {
        var fe = (FrameworkElement)sender;

        if (fe.IsVisible && (bool)((FrameworkElement)sender).GetValue(IsFocusedProperty))
            {
            fe.IsVisibleChanged -= fe_IsVisibleChanged;
            fe.Focus();
            }
        }

    private static void OnLostFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
        if (sender != null && sender is Control s)
            {
            s.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, false);
            }
        }

    private static void OnGotFocus(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
        if (sender != null && sender is Control s)
            {
            s.SetValue(IsFocusedProperty, true);
            }
        }
    }