Question

I’m creating a WPF project using Python Tools for Visual Studio (in VS 2010). I add an Image control to the form. I click the “…” in the Image’s Source property, and find an image.

This adds an “Images” folder to the project (both in the filesystem and in the solution), and copies the image to that folder (again both in the filesystem and in the solution). The image does not show up in the “Add” dialog. The Source attribute is set to “Images/foo.png”.

In the XAML the source is blue-underlined because the “Build Action” is not set to “Resource”. The only build actions available are “Content”, “Compile”, and “None”. I presume “Resource” isn’t available in a dynamic language like IronPython (certainly an embedded resource would be complex). I don’t know whether this is the problem or whether this can be ignored.

The image does not show in the live editing window, and it doesn’t show when the program runs.

I’ve tried “/Images/foo.png” (as suggested here), “pack://application:,,,/foo.png”, “pack://application:,,,/Images/foo.png”, “pack://siteoforigin:,,,/foo.png”, and “pack://siteoforigin:,,,/Images/foo.png”.

(The siteoforigin doesn’t work because the ‘origin’ is ipy.exe. If I move the Images folder to the folder where IronPython is installed, then this does work. Obviously not a great solution!).

I’ve tried moving the Images folder in the filesystem to the same folder as the solution (i.e. one level up in the hierarchy), and having the image in the same folder as the .py file rather than in an Images subfolder.

If I change the source (directly in the XAML) to an absolute path, then it works perfectly. Obviously this isn’t a great solution either!

How can I use a relative path for the Image?

Answer 1

It is possible. Apparently all you need to do is specify the source as a BitmapImage and relative URI will use the current directory as the base. Ignore the warnings about the file not being a resource, it doesn’t really matter. It will show when you run your program.

<Window xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" 
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" 
        Title="MyWpfApplication" Height="300" Width="300">
    <Grid>
        <Image>
            <Image.Source>
                <BitmapImage UriSource="../Relative/Path/To/Image.png" />
            </Image.Source>
        </Image>
    </Grid>
</Window> 

I think it is all due to the default value converters for images. If you bypass using them, it all seems to just work out.