ToolWindow contents disappear sometimes.

Hi Sara,

I would recommend that if you do data binding, you set the DataContext directly on the ToolWindow instance.  You could even bind the ToolWindow's DataContext with something like "{Binding ElementName=window, Path=DataContext}" where "window" is your root Window.  If you do that the DataContext on the docking window will remain constant no matter where it is docked/floated.  If you don't do that, then the inherited DataContext will change as the docking window is docked/undocked around into different places.

So I will be able to change the Title and Header of the Tool Window with a binding if I do so in the DataContext?  All of our views are UserControls, not Windows, though I assume that would work similarly?

Yes I would think that would work.

I do not think this is the issue.  When I remove the Bindings from the <ToolWindow> and just hardcode the values for verification purposes, the problem still occurs..the child of my <ToolWindow> is a Grid.  It is setup similar to the examples. 

We'd probably need you to give us something to debug if you'd like further assistance on this.  If you can't figure it out, please make a new very simple sample project that shows the problem and email that to our support address.  Rename the .zip file extension so it doesn't get spam blocked.  Thanks!

So we have a DockSite that contains 2 SplitContainers.  The first SplitContainer contains a WorkSpace (which is working fine).  The second SplitContainer contains 2 ToolWindowContainers.  Each ToolWindowContainer contains 2 ToolWindows.  I believe that the order of the ToolWindows in the ToolWindowContainer determines which ToolWindow to place on top with the focus.  When I place our Navigator Tool Window on top, the scenario that I am currently debugging works fine.  However, when the Navigator Tool Window is NOT on top in the initial load, it does not work correctly.

Here is the scenario:

I load the view and all ToolWindows are visible.  Of course, one of each in the ToolWindowContainer is on top...I auto-hide both ToolWindowContainers and then hover over the Navigator window and choose to Dock, it docks but the content is blank.  If I load with the Navigator on top, it works fine.

I also noticed that if I simply replace the code in the Navigator Tool Window with only a textblock, this works fine with the Navigator NOT on top. 

Is there something that is loading everything for the ToolWindow that is on top that is not occurring for the ToolWindow that is NOT on top??

ToolWindowContainers are similar to regular native WPF TabControls in that they only are presenting the content for the selected tab.  The other unselected tool window's content is not within the visual tree.  That's the only difference.  But there shouldn't be any problems with having multiple tool windows in a container at startup. 

I suspect there is an issue in how you are setting things up but I can't really tell you unless we have something to debug per our previous reply.