Creating the Toolbox and the Property Inspector Windows In WPF

We will create the Toolbox and Property Inspector windows, and add them to the Workflow Designer.

1. From last post create the Toolbox and include it in the WPF grid.  To do this, in Solution Explorer right-click the MainWindow.xaml file and choose View Code. Modify the code by following these steps:
   
   a.       Add a factory method named GetToolboxControl that creates a ToolboxControl, adds a Toolbox Category Items Collection named category1 inside it, and assigns two items to it:

   ¨       CustomActivities.Prompt activity.

   ¨       System.Activities.Statements.Sequence activity.

   
   

   C#

   
   
   private ToolboxControl GetToolboxControl()

   {

       //Create the ToolBoxControl

       ToolboxControl ctrl = new ToolboxControl();

   
   

       //Create a collection of category items

       ToolboxCategory categoryItems = new ToolboxCategory("category1");  

   
   

       //Creating toolboxItems

       ToolboxItemWrapper tool =

           new ToolboxItemWrapper("CustomActivities.Prompt",

   "CustomActivities", null, null);

   
   

       ToolboxItemWrapper tool2 = new ToolboxItemWrapper("System.Activities.Statements.Sequence",

           "System.Activities, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35",

           null, "Sequence");

   
   

       //Adding the toolboxItems to the category.

       categoryItems.Add(tool);

       categoryItems.Add(tool2);

   
   

       //Adding the category to the ToolBox control.

       ctrl.Categories.Add(categoryItems);

       return ctrl;

   } 

   
   

Visual Basic

Private Function GetToolboxControl() As ToolboxControl

    ' Create the ToolBoxControl

    Dim ctrl As New ToolboxControl()

    ' Create a collection of categories

    Dim categoryItems As New ToolboxCategory("category1")

    

    ' Creating toolboxItems

    Dim tool As New ToolboxItemWrapper("CustomActivities.Prompt", "CustomActivities", Nothing, Nothing)

    Dim tool2 As New ToolboxItemWrapper("System.Activities.Statements.Sequence", "System.Activities, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35", Nothing, "Sequence")

    'Adding the toolboxItems to the category.

    categoryItems.Add(tool)

    categoryItems.Add(tool2)

    'Adding the category to the ToolBox control.

    ctrl.Categories.Add(categoryItems)

    Return ctrl

End Function

       b.       Place the Toolbox control to the leftmost column of the WPF grid. To do this, add a private method AddToolbox to the MainWindow class.

C#

private void AddToolBox()

{

    ToolboxControl tc = GetToolboxControl();

    Grid.SetColumn(tc, 0);

    grid1.Children.Add(tc);

}

Visual Basic

Private Sub AddToolBox()

    Dim tc As ToolboxControl = GetToolboxControl()

    Grid.SetColumn(tc, 0)

    grid1.Children.Add(tc)

End Sub

      c.       Add a call to the AddToolbox method created in the previous step. To do this, add the following code (shown in bold) to the MainWindow class constructor.

C#

public MainWindow()

{

    InitializeComponent();

    this.RegisterMetadata();

    this.AddDesigner();

    this.AddToolBox();

}

Visual Basic

Public Sub New()

    InitializeComponent()

    Me.RegisterMetadata()

    Me.AddDesigner()

    Me.AddToolBox()

End Sub

     d.       Press CTRL+S to save the changes.

2.       Press CTRL+F5 to build and run the solution and verify that the toolbox is created in the leftmost column of the application window and that items dragged from the toolbox can be dropped on the Workflow Designer surface.

The WPF application hosting the WorkflowDesigner and the Toolbox