Walkthrough: Hosting a Windows Forms Control in Windows Presentation Foundation

Article
11/03/2006

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:
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Prerequisites

To complete this walkthrough you will need:

Development Tools for .NET Framework 3.0, which enable you to create a WPF application project. For information on installing these tools, see Installation Instructions for the Windows SDK.

Hosting the Windows Forms Control

To host the MaskedTextBox control

Create a Windows Application (WPF) project named HostingWfInWpf.
In Solution Explorer, add a reference to the WindowsFormsIntegration assembly, which is named WindowsFormsIntegration.dll.

The default location for this file is %programfiles%\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.0\WindowsFormsIntegration.dll.
In Solution Explorer, add a reference to the Windows Forms assembly, which is named System.Windows.Forms.dll.
In the Windows Forms Designer, open Window1.xaml.

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

<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>

<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>

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

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

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);
        }
    }
}

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

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Walkthrough: Hosting a Windows Forms Control in Windows Presentation Foundation

Prerequisites

Hosting the Windows Forms Control

To host the MaskedTextBox control

See Also

Tasks

Reference

Concepts

Other Resources

Additional resources