Question

I have problem with WPF – I’m quiet new in this smart technology. So the problem is:

I have a window. In this window’s resources I have stored an element – eg. a Grid with unique key (assume x:Key=”myGrid”). In this Grid I have a TextBox identified by a name (x:Name=”myTextBox”).
My Window contains only an empty Grid (named eg. winGrid). I programmatically set the myGrid as a child of the winGrid. And now, in runtime, I want to get a reference to the myTextBox object. I spent plenty of time googling, but nothing worked for me (FindName and similar methods).

Do you have please any idea, what I have to do to get the ball rolling?

Here is (pseudo)code snippet once more:

<Window x:Class="LoginForm.RidicWindow"
    ...>
<Window.Resources>
    <Grid x:Key="myGrid">
        <Border...
        <Grid...
            ...
            <TextBlock x:Name="myTextBlock" Grid.Column="0".../>
         </Grid>
    </Grid>
 </Window.Resources>
 <Grid x:Name="winGrid">
     ...
 </Grid>

And now I set the myGrid as a child of winGrid:
(something like)

winGrid.Childrens.Clear();
winGrid.Childrens.Add((Grid)FindResource(myGrid));

And now I want to get a reference to myTextBlock, which is descendant of the myGrid.

I tried something like

((Grid)FindResource(myGrid)).FindByName("myTextBlock");

this, of course, doesn’t work.

Hope you understand me, what I want to get.
Lot of thanks!

Answer 1

You can not do this (By the way, you can, but it’s really bad, ugly and not recommended) The resources of a window to serve another purpose.

As mentioned, you must create a component (Usercontrol or other).. Although there are some other options for what you seek.
You can try some of what I wrote below:

---

1) Creating a custom component may be a UserControl, Grid or anything else…

    <Grid x:Class="Project.MyGridControl"
                 xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
                 xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
                 xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" 
                 xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" 
                 mc:Ignorable="d" 
                 d:DesignHeight="300" d:DesignWidth="300">
<!-- Content -->
    </Grid>

and

        MyGridControl control = new MyGridControl();
        winGrid.Childrens.Add(control);

---

2) A little more complicated:

<Grid  xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
       xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml">
    <!-- Content -->
</Grid>

and

Grid myCustomGrid = XamlReader.Load(uriResource) as Grid;
winGrid.Childrens.Add(myCustomGrid);

In this option you will not have like a grid control to instantiate. (I see it often used in reports). You should create a .xaml and define it as a resource.

---

To find components you should look in the visual tree (as already responded)…

( How can I find WPF controls by name or type? )