Comments on: Managing Application Resources when WPF is Hosted

By: David Cunningham

David Cunningham — Mon, 31 May 2010 16:56:37 +0000

Thanks for this, this is really handy. Is there a good way to load code on startup for a non-startup assembly? Say you refer to an assembly, and you want to it run a chunk of code as soon as it is loaded… is this possible? I haven’t found the right hook to do this.

By: Dean

Dean — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 05:54:02 +0000

Thanks Doc & thanks to Tom Kludy as well, that extra tidbit was important to me, since I’m hosting WPF inside Word via VSTO and I had windows coming and going. It fixed the “The Application object is being shut down” errors I was getting the second time I tried to open a window.

By: Links for 2009-12-19 | jensen

Links for 2009-12-19 | jensen — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:10:20 +0000

[...] Managing Application Resources when WPF is Hosted « Dr. WPF(tags: wpf resources runtime) [...]

By: Dr. WPF

Dr. WPF — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:42:46 +0000

Good call, Tom! Yes, if you have windows coming and going, then the app’s shutdown mode is very important in the hosted scenario, since the Application object does not necessarily know about all WPF windows.

Thanks for posting the tip!

By: Tom Kludy

Tom Kludy — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:43:06 +0000

Thanks for the info. I found that the EnsureApplicationResources() method worked for me (WPF component hosted in MMC); however, the lifetime of the Application object is flaky. I think it gets destroyed as soon as I open a WPF “Window” proper, and then close it. The result was that the entire MMC window closed with no feedback – not even a caught exception under the debugger.

I was able to fix this by doing:

new Application { ShutdownMode = ShutdownMode.OnExplicitShutdown };

Then, when my snap-in is shutting down I explicitly call Application.Current.Shutdown().

I think this might also answer Colin’s problem. It’s worth a try anyway.

By: Dr. WPF

Dr. WPF — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:49:09 +0000

Wow! Good catch, Michael K! I’m surprised no one else has reported that. It was definitely a bug.

I updated the GetResourceDictionary() method with something that should work much better. Thanks for the heads up!

Cheers,
-dw

By: Michael K.

Michael K. — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:24:17 +0000

This is very handy, one question (maybe this has been mentioned?)
In your "GetResourceDictionary" method...
You basically set result = null, then if you can't find a dictionary in the collection with the parameter's name, you create one.

What about the "else" condition where you DO already have it in the collection?

Your method just returns null. Has nobody had this problem, or am I missing something?

Shouldn't there be something like this in there?
if (_sharedDictionaries.ContainsKey(dictionaryName) && _sharedDictionaries[dictionaryName].Target != null)
{
result = (ResourceDictionary)_sharedDictionaries[dictionaryName].Target;
}
return result;

Please let me know if I did something wrong... thanks.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:22:13 +0000

Hey Doc,

In regards to Collin’s post… it happens to me when using VSTO and creating an Outlook addin.

Michael

By: Dr. WPF

Dr. WPF — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:04:45 +0000

Hi Al,

Silverlight is pretty much always hosted. Is there a particular hosting scenario you are trying to conquer where you are having trouble with resource resolution?

Cheers,
-dw

By: Al

Al — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 02:16:31 +0000

Hi Dr. WPF,

I am new to WPF and Silverlight. I know you are a doctor who specializes in WPF but I am hoping that you may have run across a few Silverlight courses during your studies. The Application.LoadComponent works a bit differently in Silverlight and I cannot seem to come up with a proper solution.

Thanks for your help,

Al