How Do I Give a Textbox Focus in Silverlight?

Question

In my Silverlight application, I can\'t seem to bring focus to a TextBox control. On the recommendation of various posts, I\'ve set the IsTabStop property to True and I\'m

Answer 1

None of the above answers worked for me directly, what i did is that I added this event in in the MainPage() constructor:

this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MainPage_Loaded);

And handled it as follows:

   void MainPage_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        System.Windows.Browser.HtmlPage.Plugin.Focus();
        RegularTextBox.Focus();
    }

My Silverlight version is 4.

Answer 2

I solved putting in the control constructor:

this.TargetTextBox.Loaded += (o, e) => { this.TargetTextBox.Focus(); };

Answer 3

It works for me in SL4 and IE7 and Firefox 3.6.12

Final missing "piece" which made focus to work (for me) was setting .TabIndex property

        System.Windows.Browser.HtmlPage.Plugin.Focus();
        txtUserName.IsTabStop = true;
        txtPassword.IsTabStop = true;

        if (txtUserName.Text.Trim().Length != 0)
        {
            txtPassword.UpdateLayout();
            txtPassword.Focus();
            txtPassword.TabIndex = 0;
        }
        else
        {
            txtUserName.UpdateLayout();
            txtUserName.Focus();
            txtUserName.TabIndex = 0;
        }

Answer 4

For out-of-browser apps the System.Windows.Browser.HtmlPage.Plugin.Focus(); doesn't exist.

See my question here for other ideas.

Answer 5

I also ran into this problem, but it had arisen from a different case than what has been answered here already.

If you have a BusyIndicator control being displayed and hidden at all during your view, controls will not get focus if you have lines like

Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() => { myControl.Focus();}); 

in the load event.

Instead, you will need to call that line of code after your BusyIndicator display has been set to false.

I have a related question here, as well as a solution for this scenario.

Answer 6

I forgot one thing...I haven't found a way to force focus to your Silverlight application on the page reliably (it will work on some browsers and not on others).

So it may be that the Silverlight app itself doesn't have focus. I usually trick the user into clicking a button or something similar before I start expecting keyboard input to make sure that the silverlight app has focus.