I have a WPF application that I want to look like it is hosted inside another - non-WPF - application. In real life this non-WPF app is an ActiveX inside Internet Explorer, but for the sake of illustrating the problem I use a simple Windows Forms app.
I use the Windows API function SetParent, which there are dozens of threads on already. However, I cannot find anything written on my exact problem: A small region on the right and bottom of the WPF app is not painted inside the non-WPF app's window.
The WPF window running by itself:
The WPF window with WinForm app's window as parent:
I don't experience the problem if a swap the WPF app with a WinForms app or a plain Win32 app (like Notepad).
The WinForm code looks like this:
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// Start process
var psi = new ProcessStartInfo("c:\\wpfapp\\wpfapp\\bin\\Debug\\wpfapp.exe");
psi.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Normal;
_process = Process.Start(psi);
// Sleep until new process is ready
Thread.Sleep(1000);
// Set new process's parent to this window
SetParent(_process.MainWindowHandle, this.Handle);
// Remove WS_POPUP and add WS_CHILD window style to child window
const int GWL_STYLE = -16;
const long WS_POPUP = 0x80000000;
const long WS_CHILD = 0x40000000;
long style = GetWindowLong(_process.MainWindowHandle, GWL_STYLE);
style = (style & ~(WS_POPUP)) | WS_CHILD;
SetWindowLong(_process.MainWindowHandle, GWL_STYLE, style);
// Move and resize child window to fit into parent's
MoveWindow(_process.MainWindowHandle, 0, 0, this.Width, this.Height, true);
}
Note: I'm aware that this use of SetParent is not necessarily a recommended practice, but I want to and need to find out how to do it this way, so please let me :)
I found a workaround that works fairly well: Call MoveWindow before SetParent:
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// Start process
var psi = new ProcessStartInfo("C:\\WpfApp\\WpfApp.exe");
psi.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Normal;
_process = Process.Start(psi);
// Sleep until new process is ready
Thread.Sleep(3000);
// Move and resize child window to fit into parent's
Rectangle rect;
GetClientRect(this.Handle, out rect);
MoveWindow(_process.MainWindowHandle, 0, 0, rect.Right - rect.Left, rect.Bottom - rect.Top, true);
// Set new process's parent to this window
SetParent(_process.MainWindowHandle, this.Handle);
// Remove WS_POPUP and add WS_CHILD window style to child window
long style = GetWindowLong(_process.MainWindowHandle, GWL_STYLE);
style = (style & ~(WS_POPUP) & ~(WS_CAPTION)) & ~(WS_THICKFRAME) | WS_CHILD;
SetWindowLong(_process.MainWindowHandle, GWL_STYLE, style);
}
In the SizeChanged event handler, I take the child out of the parent, call MoveWindow and move it back into the parent. To reduce flickering, I hide the window while doing these operations:
private void Form1_SizeChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
ShowWindow(_process.MainWindowHandle, SW_HIDE);
var ptr = new IntPtr();
SetParent(_process.MainWindowHandle, ptr);
Rectangle rect;
GetClientRect(this.Handle, out rect);
MoveWindow(_process.MainWindowHandle, 0, 0, rect.Right - rect.Left, rect.Bottom - rect.Top, true);
SetParent(_process.MainWindowHandle, this.Handle);
ShowWindow(_process.MainWindowHandle, SW_SHOW);
}
it doesn't explain why MoveWindow doesn't work after SetParent, but it solves my problem, so I will mark this as the answer unless something better comes up.