Walkthrough: Hosting a Windows Forms Control in WPF by Using XAML

WPF provides many controls with a rich feature set. However, you may sometimes want to use Windows Forms controls on your WPF pages. For example, you may have a substantial investment in existing Windows Forms controls, or you may have a Windows Forms control that provides unique functionality.

This walkthrough shows you how to host a Windows Forms System.Windows.Forms.MaskedTextBox control on a WPF page by using XAML.

For a complete code listing of the tasks shown in this walkthrough, see Hosting a Windows Forms Control in WPF by Using XAML Sample.

Prerequisites

You need the following components to complete this walkthrough:

• Visual Studio 2010.

Hosting the Windows Forms Control

To host the MaskedTextBox control

1. Create a WPF Application project named HostingWfInWpfWithXaml.

2. Add references to the following assemblies.

   • WindowsFormsIntegration

   • System.Windows.Forms

3. Open MainWindow.xaml in the WPF Designer.

4. In the Window element, add the following namespace mapping. The wf namespace mapping establishes a reference to the assembly that contains the Windows Forms control.

   xmlns:wf="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Forms;assembly=System.Windows.Forms"
   

5. In the Grid element add the following XAML.

   The MaskedTextBox control is created as a child of the WindowsFormsHost control.

       <Grid>
   
           <WindowsFormsHost>
               <wf:MaskedTextBox x:Name="mtbDate" Mask="00/00/0000"/>
           </WindowsFormsHost>
   
       </Grid>
   
   

6. Press F5 to build and run the application.

See Also

Tasks

Walkthrough: Hosting a Windows Forms Control in WPF

Reference

ElementHost

WindowsFormsHost

Concepts

Walkthrough: Hosting a Windows Forms Composite Control in WPF

Walkthrough: Hosting a WPF Composite Control in Windows Forms

Windows Forms Controls and Equivalent WPF Controls

Other Resources

WPF Designer

Hosting a Windows Forms Control in WPF by Using XAML Sample