Debug XBAP using WinForms Host

Mrojas — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:13:21 GMT

Recently I had to deal with targeting an XBAP application that had some Windows Forms controls.

The problem is that those controls can only be used in a trusted environment. If you try to debug an XBAP with some Windows Forms Controls you will get an exception like:

Message: Cannot create instance of 'Page1' defined in assembly 'XBAPWithWinForms, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'. Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. Error in markup file 'Page1.xaml' Line 1 Position 7.

It took me a while to found a solution, and it was thru Scott Landford Blog that I found a way around.

In short what he recommends to do is:

Change your settings to:

Start Action->Start external program = %windir%system32\PresentationHost.exe

In my case (and the case of most people that is: c:\windows\system32\PresentationHost.exe)

Start Options->Command line arguments = -debug "c:\projects\myproject\bin\debug\MyProject.xbap" -debugSecurityZoneUrl "http://localhost:2022"

Copy the value from the Start URL after the –debug argument

Very import for using WinForms components you must run in FULL TRUST

Here is some XBAP code using a WinForms WebBrowser. They designer does not like it a lot but it works:

XBAPWithWinforms.zip

TLBIMP SourceCode

Mrojas — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:50:00 GMT

Have you ever wished to modify the way Visual Studio imported a COM Class. Well finally you can.

The Managed, Native, and COM Interop Team (wow what a name). It looks like the name of that goverment office in the Ironman movie.

Well this fine group of men, have release the source code of the TLBIMP tool. I'm more that happy for this.

I can know finally get why are some things imported the way they are.

http://www.codeplex.com/clrinterop

You can dowload also the P/Invoke assistant. This assistant has a library of signatures so you can invoke any Windows API.

Mauricio Rojas Blog : Software Development, Interop

Debug XBAP using WinForms Host

TLBIMP SourceCode