How to emulate a console in WPF?

Question

I'd like some tips-in-the-right-direction or even ready solutions to this problem and I'm pretty stuck (I'm just beginner/intermediate):

I'm trying to implement a SSH in my application. The SSH-backend works fine and such, but I'm stuck at the frontend. What WPF-Combination would present me with an adequate solution to emulate a console? Put aside a complete terminal-emulation, I'd be happy to simply readline/writeline into something that looks like a console :-)

My best approach yet was a 80x50 Grid of single characters resulting in 4000 single cells and that feels like a total overkill.

Another idea was to make a console-Appl. bound to a wpf-window in another project. But...is that even possible and how?

Answer 1

Given that you want to emulate a console, I'd do it like this. Note that you'd have to handle the commands and outputting the results yourself.

page.xaml

<Window x:Class="ConsoleEmulation.MainWindow"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    Title="MainWindow" MinHeight="350" MinWidth="525" Height="350" Width="525">
    <Grid>
        <ScrollViewer Name="Scroller" Margin="0" Background="Black">
            <StackPanel>
                <ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding ConsoleOutput, Mode=OneWay}">
                    <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
                        <DataTemplate>
                            <TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=.}" Foreground="White" FontFamily="Consolas"/>
                        </DataTemplate>
                    </ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
                </ItemsControl>
                <TextBox Text="{Binding ConsoleInput, Mode=TwoWay}" Background="Black" Foreground="White" FontFamily="Consolas" Name="InputBlock" BorderBrush="{x:Null}" SelectionBrush="{x:Null}" />
            </StackPanel>
        </ScrollViewer>
    </Grid>
</Window>

page.xaml.cs

public partial class MainWindow : Window
{
    ConsoleContent dc = new ConsoleContent();

    public MainWindow()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        DataContext = dc;
        Loaded += MainWindow_Loaded;
    }

    void MainWindow_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        InputBlock.KeyDown += InputBlock_KeyDown;
        InputBlock.Focus();
    }

    void InputBlock_KeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
    {
        if (e.Key == Key.Enter)
        {
            dc.ConsoleInput = InputBlock.Text;
            dc.RunCommand();
            InputBlock.Focus();
            Scroller.ScrollToBottom();
        }
    }
}

public class ConsoleContent : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
    string consoleInput = string.Empty;
    ObservableCollection<string> consoleOutput = new ObservableCollection<string>() { "Console Emulation Sample..." };

    public string ConsoleInput
    {
        get
        {
            return consoleInput;
        }
        set
        {
            consoleInput = value;
            OnPropertyChanged("ConsoleInput");
        }
    }

    public ObservableCollection<string> ConsoleOutput
    {
        get
        {
            return consoleOutput;
        }
        set
        {
            consoleOutput = value;
            OnPropertyChanged("ConsoleOutput");
        }
    }

    public void RunCommand()
    {
        ConsoleOutput.Add(ConsoleInput);
        // do your stuff here.
        ConsoleInput = String.Empty;
    }


    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
    void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName)
    {
        if (null != PropertyChanged)
            PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
    }
}

Answer 2

Did you know that you can display a Console window from your application by using AllocConsole?

This is a simple way to create a "dual-mode" application can be a console or windows forms application.

[DllImport("kernel32")]
static extern bool AllocConsole();

Or you can use this:

<Grid>
    <Grid.RowDefinitions>
        <RowDefinition/>
        <RowDefinition Height="30"/>
    </Grid.RowDefinitions>
    <TextBlock Text="Console contents..." HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" x:Name="ConsoleTextBlock"/>
    <DockPanel Grid.Row="1">
        <TextBox/>
    </DockPanel>
</Grid>

For better looks, replace the TextBlock with a ListBox and style the ItemTemplate accordingly.