Question

I’ve got this code in a pages OnNavigatedTo() event:

if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(textBoxGroupName.Text))
{
    textBoxGroupName.Focus(FocusState.Programmatic);
}

…but textBoxGroupName does not have focus when the page displays. Why not?

Answer 1

OnNavigatedTo happens to early in the page lifetime for setting the focus to work. You should call your code in the Loaded event:

private void MainPage_OnLoaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(textBoxGroupName.Text))
    {
        textBoxGroupName.Focus(FocusState.Programmatic);
    }
}

Of course you need to setup the handler in your .xaml file (I’ve omitted the other attributes in the Page element:

<Page
    Loaded="MainPage_OnLoaded">