Keeping keyboard focus on a single control while still beeing able to use a ListBox

Question

Working on a TouchScreen application which also has a keyboard attached, I have the following problem:

The WPF window has a TextBox, which should receive ALL keyboard input. There are also Buttons and a ListBox, which are solely used by the TouchScreen(=Mouse).

A very simple example looks like this:

<Window x:Class="KeyboardFocusTest.Window1"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    Title="Window1">
    <StackPanel>
        <TextBox Text="{Binding Input, Mode=TwoWay, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}"
                 PreviewLostKeyboardFocus="TextBox_PreviewLostKeyboardFocus"/>
        <Button Click="Button_Click">Add</Button>
        <ListBox ItemsSource="{Binding Strings}" />
    </StackPanel>
</Window>

To keep the TextBox always focused, I just do:

private void TextBox_PreviewLostKeyboardFocus(object sender, System.Windows.Input.KeyboardFocusChangedEventArgs e)
{
    e.Handled = true;
}

So far so good - the problem now is, that I can't select items from the ListBox anymore. This only seems to work, if the ListBox has the keyboard focus. But if I loose the keyboard focus on the TextBox, I can't enter text anymore without clicking it first.

Any ideas, comments suggestions are welcome!

Answer 1

Based on Nicholas' suggestion (thx!), here's a markup extension, which is used like:

<TextBox Helpers:KeyboardFocusAttractor.IsAttracted="true" />

It seems to work, and ANTS didn't show any memory leaks. But when it comes to WPF and especially events and bindings, you never know, so use with care!

public static class KeyboardFocusAttractor
{
    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsAttracted = DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("IsAttracted",
        typeof (bool), typeof (KeyboardFocusAttractor), new PropertyMetadata(false, OnIsAttracted));

    private static void OnIsAttracted(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        var isAttracted = (bool) e.NewValue;
        var controlWithInputFocus = d as Control;

        if (controlWithInputFocus != null)
        {
            if (isAttracted)
            {
                new KeyboardInputFocusEventManager(controlWithInputFocus);
            }
        }
    }

    public static void SetIsAttracted(DependencyObject dp, bool value)
    {
        dp.SetValue(IsAttracted, value);
    }

    public static bool GetIsAttracted(DependencyObject dp)
    {
        return (bool) dp.GetValue(IsAttracted);
    }

    private class KeyboardInputFocusEventManager
    {
        private readonly Control _control;
        private Window _window;

        public KeyboardInputFocusEventManager(Control control)
        {
            _control = control;
            _control.Loaded += ControlLoaded;
            _control.IsVisibleChanged += ControlIsVisibleChanged;
            _control.Unloaded += ControlUnloaded;
        }

        private void ControlLoaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            _window = Window.GetWindow(_control);
            if (_window != null)
            {
                _control.Unloaded += ControlUnloaded;
                _control.IsVisibleChanged += ControlIsVisibleChanged;
                if (_control.IsVisible)
                {
                    _window.PreviewKeyDown += ParentWindowPreviewKeyDown;
                }
            }
        }

        private void ControlUnloaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            _control.Unloaded -= ControlUnloaded;
            _control.IsVisibleChanged -= ControlIsVisibleChanged;
        }

        private void ControlIsVisibleChanged(object sender, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
        {
            if (_window != null)
            {
                _window.PreviewKeyDown -= ParentWindowPreviewKeyDown;
            }

            if (_control.IsVisible)
            {
                _window = Window.GetWindow(_control);
                if (_window != null)
                {
                    _window.PreviewKeyDown += ParentWindowPreviewKeyDown;
                }
            }
        }

        private void ParentWindowPreviewKeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
        {
            Keyboard.Focus(_control);
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

There might be a more elegant solution for this, but you could always handle the PreviewKeyDown event at the Window level, and pass focus to the TextBox if it doesn't already have it, instead of preventing it from losing focus in the first place. That way, the ListBox can use focus as is normal, but as soon as a key is pressed focus jumps right to the TextBox. In addition, you can filter out keys that you don't want to switch focus - the arrow keys come to mind, which could then be used to move up and down in the ListBox.

Adding an event handler like the following should do the trick:

private void Window_PreviewKeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
    if (!textBox.IsFocused)
    {
        textBox.Focus();
    }
}