WPF: How do I loop through the all controls in a window?

Question

How do I loop through the all controls in a window in WPF?

Answer 1

I found this in the MSDN documenation so it helps.

// Enumerate all the descendants of the visual object. static public void EnumVisual(Visual myVisual) {     for (int i = 0; i < VisualTreeHelper.GetChildrenCount(myVisual); i++)     {         // Retrieve child visual at specified index value.         Visual childVisual = (Visual)VisualTreeHelper.GetChild(myVisual, i);          // Do processing of the child visual object.          // Enumerate children of the child visual object.         EnumVisual(childVisual);     } } 

Looks simpler to me. I used it to find textboxes in a form and clear their data.

Answer 2

This way is superior to the MSDN method, in that it's reusable, and it allows early aborting of the loop (i.e. via, break;, etc.) -- it optimizes the for loop in that it saves a method call for each iteration -- and it also lets you use regular for loops to loop through a Visual's children, or even recurse it's children and it's grand children -- so it's much simpler to consume.

To consume it, you can just write a regular foreach loop (or even use LINQ):

foreach (var ctrl in myWindow.GetChildren()) {     // Process children here! } 

Or if you don't want to recurse:

foreach (var ctrl in myWindow.GetChildren(false)) {     // Process children here! } 

To make it work, you just need put this extension method into any static class, and then you'll be able to write code like the above anytime you like:

public static IEnumerable<Visual> GetChildren(this Visual parent, bool recurse = true) {     if (parent != null)     {         int count = VisualTreeHelper.GetChildrenCount(parent);         for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)         {             // Retrieve child visual at specified index value.             var child = VisualTreeHelper.GetChild(parent, i) as Visual;              if (child != null)             {                 yield return child;                  if (recurse)                 {                     foreach (var grandChild in child.GetChildren(true))                     {                         yield return grandChild;                     }                 }             }         }     } } 

Also, if you don't like recursion being on by default, you can change the extension method's declaration to have recurse = false be the default behavior.