WPF.JoshSmith

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Introduction

Welcome to WPF.JoshSmith. This is not a typical CodeProject article. I am using the Web page generated for this article to host, and make publicly available, a library of classes I have created for use in Windows Presentation Foundation applications. Over time I will update this page (and the source code download) to include any new classes I've added to the WPF.JoshSmith library. Think of this as a really cheap and easy alternative to creating a full Web site just to make the assembly available to the world.

All of the major classes in WPF.JoshSmith either have an article about them here on the CodeProject, or I've blogged about them. The purpose of WPF.JoshSmith is to consolidate all of the classes I've created into one place, thus making it easier for people to have all the goodies in one assembly. In addition to providing the WPF.JoshSmith assembly, the source code download at the top of this article also contains test/demo projects for the various classes in the library. Those projects show how to use the code and what the various classes do.

All of the code in the library can be used free of charge, provided that the copyright statements in each source file remain intact. Josh Smith accepts no responsibility for any errors, loss of data, system crashes, etc. that occur as a result of using WPF.JoshSmith.

Contents

This section provides an overview of the major classes available in the library, divided up by namespaces. Click on the name of a class to open an article/blog entry which discusses it in depth.

• WPF.JoshSmith
  • Adorners
    • DragAdorner - A lightweight adorner which renders a visual that can follow the mouse cursor, such as during a drag-and-drop operation. Original concept taken from this blog post.
    • UIElementAdorner - An adorner which can display one and only one UIElement. The element is added to the adorner's visual and logical trees, enabling it to particpate in dependency property value inheritance, amongst other things.
  • Controls
    • Validation
      • RegexValidationRule - A ValidationRule-derived class which supports the use of regular expressions for validation.
      • RegexValidator - A static class which provides attached properties that supply validation of the text in a TextBox, using regular expressions. This class works in conjunction with the RegexValidationRule.
    • CenteredContentControl - A ContentControl derivative which exposes read-only dependency properties that return the element's center point (CenterX and CenterY). Those values can be used to bind another element (such as a Line) to the center of the CenteredContentControl, even if it is relocated at runtime.
    • DragCanvas - A Canvas which manages dragging of the UIElements it contains.
    • SlidingListBox - A ListBox which provides an animated slide effect when ListBoxItems are selected.
    • SmartTextBox - A TextBox with support for displaying a list of suggestions when the user misspells a word. The user presses the F1 key to display the list of suggestions.
  • Data
    • ValueConverters
      • EnumValueToDescriptionConverter - An IValueConverter which supports conversion from an enum value to the description of that value. If the enum value is decorated with the DescriptionAttribute attribute, its Description value is returned. Otherwise, the name of the enum value is returned.
      • ValueConverterGroup - An IValueConverter which contains a list of IValueConverters and invokes their Convert or ConvertBack methods in the order that they exist in the list. This allows for modular value converters to be "piped" together to achieve complex conversions.
      • XamlToObjectConverter - An IValueConverter which creates a .NET object from the XAML contained in an XmlElement. The object created can be used as the content of a WPF control or ui element, such as the ContentPresenter. The inner XML of the XmlElement passed to the converter must contain valid XAML.
  • ServiceProviders
    • UI
      • ListViewDragDropManager - Manages the dragging and dropping of ListViewItems in a ListView.
      • ListViewItemDragState - Exposes attached properties used in conjunction with the ListViewDragDropManager class. Those properties can be used to allow triggers to modify the appearance of ListViewItems in a ListView during a drag-drop operation.
      • UnloadedManager - A service provider class which provides a means of releasing resources when a FrameworkElement's Unloaded event fires. If the DataContext of the element implements IUnloadable, it's Unload method will be invoked when the elements Unloaded event fires.

Revision History

Date	Assembly Version	Notes
November 11, 2006	1.0.0.0	Created the article.
November 28, 2006	1.0.0.1	Added the CenteredContentControl and updated the source code download.
January 24, 2007	1.0.0.2	Added the ListViewDragDropManager, ListViewItemDragState, and DragAdorner classes. Also fixed broken links to articles that were moved. Updated the source code download.
February 1, 2007	1.0.0.3	Fixed a couple of bugs in the ListViewDragDropManager (see the article for details). Updated the source code download.
February 25, 2007	1.0.0.4	Added the SmartTextBox control, and the UIElementAdorner. Refactored the DragAdorner and UIElementAdorner so that they share a base class. Used a bug fix created by William J. Roberts in the MouseUtilities class (read here for more details). Updated the source code download.
April 13, 2007	1.0.0.5	Fixed a minor bug in the ListViewDragDropManager, which is described in detail at the bottom of that class's article. Updated the source code download.