Programming with .NET - General

Re: Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

kobruleht — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:07:43 GMT

Silverlight modal messagebox is like standard silverlight control, it routes click event to sl button if its button is placed in the same location in screen as sl button.

We can hopefully create our modal control and after it show hidden messagebox to create modal loop. After clicking we can release modal messagebox.

Re: Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

davides77 — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:02:27 GMT

Hi guys,

I tried the modal dialog and all works fine but...

but I put a datagrid in the modal dialog, all works fine but when I go over the header of the colums all the silverlight application disappear!!!

why?????

tnx very much!!!

Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

ygoldman — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 21:04:47 GMT

I've put together a generic framework for creating modal popups - article is here: http://blog.yuriy.org/2009/01/building-modal-popup-framework-with.html. It

Goals of the Framework:

Allow any Control to be "popped up" in modal and non-modal modes
Construct a framework that is modular and made up of discrete, reusable components
Properly hide implementation details and expose a simple api for developers to utilize.
Reduce the amount of customization to the framework required by front-end developers.

Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

lepipele — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:20:39 GMT

Here is best modal dialog control I've found:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/silverlight/slmodal.aspx

Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

lingbing — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 06:36:11 GMT

I think I must say something about this issue. I have read Dave's blog and known his idea about how to solve this problem. Yes, it works, just as we want, however, when we design a usercontrol, we sould consider both its activity and its presentation. Simply if we make a canvas with a transparent backgroud, the user could not click through thd popup, and if we add a close event and handle it we can make some code run after the event fires, but the problem is that when the users download our application, they will find the Behaviour is not like a MessageBox or Modal-Dialog, even they cannot click through, even all functions work well, If you have a look at OpenFileDialog in silverlight, it is completely windows-like, its behaviour is as same as both win32 and wpf, so that when users use it, they will find that they are using an application just like at desktop but not at a browser. I think that is why we want MS to create a Modal-Dialog and we can use ShowDialog method to show it to user just like desktop form applications.

I don't know if you agree with me at this point, however, we must acknowledge that some common controls are necessary, such as ComboBox (Dropdown), Treeview, RichTextBox...and so on. I know MS silverlight team is busy with much work, hope you work well!

Re: Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

jemiller — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 22:29:46 GMT

Hi all,

I created a Connect Feedback request for modal dialog box-like behavior for Silverlight at the following URL. If you agree with me, please rate my feedback. Thanks.

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=368862

Re: Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

Jamie H — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:04:04 GMT

I also agree, having modal dialog functionality is pretty cirtical for app development. I work for a web design company and all of our "web 2.0" designs are includuing modal dialogs that we have to hack up with html divs that cover the entire screen. I wanted to tell everyone we could do this much easier in Silverlight, but without modal dialog support, it is as much of a hack in Silverlight as it is in HTML/javascript right now.

Re: Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

jemiller — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:50:21 GMT

Yi-Lun Luo - MSFT:
Think how many times have you seen such applications on the web. This is something that we're considering for VNext. But I can't give you any details on that at this time. It may or may not be in the next version...

I've seen it a lot in the Flex apps that I've developed...

Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

grava — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 10:34:24 GMT

Only way to Resync APM model of Silverlight is plumbing SL with a "Custom" message loop.

the method :

public voi a()

{

f1();

modal1.ShowModal();

f2();

}

have to be rewritten in something like:

public void a()

{

actionQueue.Start();

actionQueue.Execute(new Action(a));

actionQueue.Execute(new Action(ShowDialog));

actionQueue.Execute(new Action(b));

actionQueue.End();

}

Try to think at ActionQueue as a Queue of System.Action<T> (or Func) and at the end() statement start the dequeuing of the actions Synchronously ... the only Great problem is that you have to Resync with the RootLayout.Dispatcher for refreshing the UI.

We're writing an article about the resync problem which involves, for instance, a call to a WCF service, a Prompt and another call to WCF, in which we don't use APM (async programming model with "OnComplete" delegates), but plain C# Code.

Stay tuned, we've implemented everything and it seems it's ok ... we're investigating in more complex cases if we could run in starvation, race conditions or something else that ... well, it's the problem that pushed MS to remove sync methods ... Blocks our main UI Thread .

Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

hammadmirza — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 07:01:36 GMT

Why dont you people try Telerik Rad Controls for Silverlight, it contains a Window Control in 2nd release

Well if you want to make your own, i suggest you somethings:-

the Window Control must have instance of LayoutRoot,
Reason: When a Dialog is shown and you dont want that the UI below that dialog must not be accessed, you need to show a rectangle (full width and height, LayoutRoot.Childern.Add(rectangle) ) with translucent background, just above the UI and below the dialog box(ZIndex)

the Window Control must recieve BrowserResizeEvents,
Reason: If a Dialog is currently active, and user resizes the browser, you need to resize that translucent rectangle to new dimensions, or you may want to center align the window.

I did all this in Silverlight 1.1, so any more questions you can ask.

Re: Re: Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

CleverCoder — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:17:20 GMT

I wouldn't expect too much sympathy in your efforts to find a truly asynchronous solution. Just follow this thread long enough. :) As nice as it would be, it does make a certain amount of sense with respect to how the plugin works. There is no message pump like there is in Win32 / WinForms.. I think you will need to follow the async route to get to where you're trying to go. It would be helpful if there was a solution or helper classes in SL. SOmething like a "Dialoge" base control that has properties for "OkAction" or... "NextActivity"... or .. whatever. I have a suggestion. Why not incorporate a messageloop like behavior in SL and actually give us all what we want: true modality! :)

Re: Re: Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

codism — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:29:47 GMT

bhelzer:

I just want to put up a simple message when the user goes to a different part of the application: "Your data has changed do you want to save it? Yes - No - Cancel".

And no, I can't do this asynchronously, because if I go on the application will lose it's state. So please don't tell me it's as simple as listening to some event. Since I am already in an event and need to respond to it correctly with user input.

Basically, you need to redesign your dialog box to accept a callback. The dialog box will call the callback with the user's input. The following code are from our production:

MessageBox.ShowYesNoQuestion("Are you sure you want to delete the buyer?", (r) =>
                {
                    if (r == MessageBoxResult.Yes)
                    {
                        _buyerColl.Remove(bge.Buyer);
                    }
                });

Re: Re: Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

bhelzer — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:12:39 GMT

Of course I would like a general modal dialogs. But for 2.0 I would be satisified with just a MessageBox.

I just want to put up a simple message when the user goes to a different part of the application: "Your data has changed do you want to save it? Yes - No - Cancel".

And no, I can't do this asynchronously, because if I go on the application will lose it's state. So please don't tell me it's as simple as listening to some event. Since I am already in an event and need to respond to it correctly with user input.

Re: Re: Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

CleverCoder — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:38:23 GMT

Dave Relyea:

You might want to check this out:
http://blogs.msdn.com/devdave/archive/2008/06/08/using-popup-to-create-a-dialog-class.aspx

Dave, this has solved my problem beautifully! This is definitely a good solution for now. It doesn't address the procedural issue, but it gets me past my issue.

Cheers!
- Sean

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Modal-Dialogs and MessageBox-Like behaviour.

Ciaran Murphy — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:14:37 GMT

Of course MS are listening... you can see it every day on the forums. Frankly I think the frustration/impatience you're hearing should be both encouraging and congratulatory. To get the level of functionality that is in Silverlight in it's first few releases has been no small feat. It's been done in view of a far more expectant/critical audience than most products ever had to contend with. It took Flash/Flex 10+ years to get where they are today. MS is attemting something far bigger in a far tighter timescale.

I'd love 'proper' modal dialogs too, but as it is, it's a pain, but not a showstopper by any means. Work hard guys!