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How to show placeholder text in a WPF TextBox in C# and VB

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Sometimes, when you have a text box in a user interface, you may want to add placeholder text to that text box to give users a prompt as to what to enter into the text box. If you've ever used UWP or WinUI, you'll probably have noticed that the default text box elements provide a PlaceholderText property that provides this functionality. However, WPF and Windows Forms don't provide this functionality by default. Luckily, thanks to WPF's rendering capabilities, it is quite easy to set up placeholder text manually. If you're using Windows Forms, you can make use of the ElementHost to use a WPF TextBox. Typically, placeholder text is a slightly faded colour compared to user-entered text to help distinguish it and only shows when no text is entered into the text box. An example is below: How to show placeholder text in a WPF TextBox To show placeholder text in a WPF textbox, all we need to do is show a partially transparent, intangible Label above the TextBox like so (Y...
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How to use modern icons in XAML in WPF on Windows 10 and 11

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Icons and symbols are a common part of modern user interfaces. Depending on your skills, creating your own icons may not be easy. Luckily, Windows 10 and 11 come preinstalled with plenty of icons that can be used in applications. If you've developed for UWP or WinUI and have used the SymbolIcon , you may have seen these icons before. By using these modern icons, you can create user interfaces that look consistent with the operating system. And the great part is that it's easy to use these icons with WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) while supporting both Windows 10 and 11. 6 WPF buttons with modern icons in Windows 11 The same 6 WPF buttons with modern icons in Windows 10 Where the icons are stored These modern icons that Windows 10 and 11 include come in the form of fonts - specifically Segoe MDL2 Assets and Segoe Fluent Icons . Segoe MDL2 Assets is included in Windows 10 and 11 and Segoe Fluent Icons is included in Windows 11. Segoe Fluent Icons includes newer version...
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How to enable dark title bar in WPF and Windows Forms/WinForms apps in C# and VB

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Windows has had a dark mode feature for a long time now, however, as a Windows Forms and/or WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) developer, you may have noticed that the Windows dark mode does not affect your app at all automatically - in fact the Windows dark mode only automatically affects UWP, WinUI and Chromium based user interfaces - there's no support for Windows dark mode in Windows Forms and WPF. Tip: If you want to set the title bar's colours to any colours you want instead of just light or dark, follow this guide here . Luckily, it is very easy to determine if dark mode is currently enabled and be notified any time dark mode is switched on or off - from there it's just a matter of updating your UI to match which mode Windows is in. While this may work fine for the client area of your app (i.e. the area of your app that does not include the title bar and border), you don't have a lot of control over the non-client area of your app and you'll notice that by...
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Make your TextBoxes easier to scroll: How to enable horizontal and vertical scrollbars in a WPF TextBox in XAML, C# and VB

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WPF's (Windows Presentation Foundation's) TextBox control is one of its most fundamental and useful controls - you can use it for anything from requesting small amounts of text from the user to huge chunks of text with multiple lines. It even supports spell check as well. Now, one of the issues you might find, however, when using a TextBox for accepting large amounts of text is that it might be hard for the user to scroll through the text in a TextBox. By default, the only ways to scroll a WPF TextBox are a) to move the text cursor and the TextBox will scroll automatically to the location of the cursor, b) to scroll vertically with a scrollwheel or touchpad gesture (More info on that here ) or c) to scroll with a touch screen using the panning gesture (through to scroll horizontally you must first start scrolling vertically). As you can tell, these options are limited - moving the text cursor to scroll is a slow and cumbersome process and with a scroll wheel or touchpad you can...
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How to change the colour of a WPF or Windows Forms/WinForms title bar in Windows 11 in C# and VB

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The windows title bar has gone through various changes throughout the years - from the old title bars with user customisable colours to the newer title bars with visual styling support introduced in Windows XP to the DWM (Desktop Window Manager) rendered title bars introduced in Windows Vista. One thing about these changes is that they often explored the concepts the relationship of the title bar to the client area of Windows and who is in control of what the title bar looks like. For example, in Windows XP, the user could only choose between specific title bar styles unless you used the Windows classic theme, in which case you could choose your own title bar colours or even use gradients if you wanted. With the addition of the DWM in Windows Vista, Microsoft explored the idea of extending the title bar into the non client area of Windows - think File Explorer and Microsoft Word for example. Where we are now In modern versions of Windows, the title bar only uses the DWM version and all...
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