WPF WindowsFormsHost VS2008 Toolbox has grayed out all the Windows Forms controls

Question

I'm trying to use WindowsFormsHost in a WPF app so I can use some Windows Forms components.

<Grid>
    <WindowsFormsHost>

    </WindowsFormsHost>
</Grid>

This all works ok with no errors, but when I go to drag a Windows Forms component from the toolbox in VS2008, they're all grayed out. In a way this makes sense as only the WPF components are available. But how do you drop a Windows Forms component onto a WindowsFormsHost if they're all grayed out and unavailable?

Answer 1

I don't think WPF designer supports Windows Forms components. You need to specify these in the XAML or in code. A simple example of how to add a WinForms button into a WPF application. Note that the button isn't visible on the design surface.

<Window x:Class="DataTemplateBind.Window1"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:forms="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Forms;assembly=System.Windows.Forms"
    Title="Window1" Height="300" Width="300">

    <WindowsFormsHost Height="200" Name="windowsFormsHost1" Width="258" >
        <forms:Button Text="Waaa :("></forms:Button>
    </WindowsFormsHost>
</Window>

Note the added xmlns:forms namespace which isn't there by default.