Question

I want to open a WPF Window from a Console application. After referring to this post, it works fine.

The problem is: When the user closed the WPF Window (manually), it can no long be re-opened from the Console, throwing the exception message: “Cannot create more than one System.Windows.Application instance in the same AppDomain.”

Here is the code:

class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string input=null;
            while ((input = Console.ReadLine()) == "y")
            {
                //Works fine at the first iteration,
                //But failed at the second iteration.
                StartWpfThread();
            }
        }
        private static void OpenWindow()
        {
            //Exception(Cannot create more than one System.Windows.Application instance in the same AppDomain.)
            //is thrown at the second iteration.
            var app = new System.Windows.Application();
            var window = new System.Windows.Window();
            app.Run(window);
            //User  closes the opened window manually.
        }
        private static void StartWpfThread()
        {
            var thread = new Thread(() =>
            {
                OpenWindow();
            });
            thread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA);
            thread.IsBackground = false;
            thread.Start();
        }
    }

How can I re-open the WPF Window?

Answer 1

You should not create the application together with the window but only once separately, also make sure that it does not exit after the window is closed by setting the ShutdownMode respectively, e.g.

class Program
{
    static Application app;
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var appthread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(() =>
            {
                app = new Application();
                app.ShutdownMode = ShutdownMode.OnExplicitShutdown;
                app.Run();
            }));
        appthread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA);
        appthread.Start();

        while (true)
        {
            var key =Console.ReadKey().Key;
            // Press 1 to create a window
            if (key == ConsoleKey.D1)
            {
                // Use of dispatcher necessary as this is a cross-thread operation
                DispatchToApp(() => new Window().Show());
            }
            // Press 2 to exit
            if (key == ConsoleKey.D2)
            {
                DispatchToApp(() => app.Shutdown());
                break;
            }
        }
    }

    static void DispatchToApp(Action action)
    {
        app.Dispatcher.Invoke(action);
    }
}

Also if you want to re-open the very same window make sure it is never closed completely, to do that you can handle the Closing event and cancel it using e.Cancel = true;, then just call Hide on the window to “close” it and Show to “open” it again later.