How to save the UI state of A WPF Application before closing?

MERUN KUMAR MAITY 511

I have a WPF application where I use multiple controls like button, combo box, check box, Tree view etc. I use a lot of visual styles and control templates to look my application modern and stylist. My application works perfectly as much as I want but one problem is I want to save the UI state of my application because as soon as I close my application all the selected values like check box state, comb box selected value, tree view state etc will removed and if I started application again then I don't see any previous state and values which I done before. Most people recommended me to use the Application settings feature which is officially from Microsoft but I don't have any clear idea that how to use it?

By the way, My WPF application is a MVVM base where I use multiple view model to manipulate the UI layer with proper data abstraction. Does the saving approach of a UI state is slightly different for a MVVM base WPF application?

My main question is what is the efficient way to save the UI state of a MVVM base WPF application? either it is a simple application settings or it will be some kind of complex data binding?

I don't include any source code because it's nothing to do with my application source code because giving the full source code of my application is quite impossible also. Just create a demo WPF application include some check box and combo box give them value and save them before closing the application.

Our main goal is to find a simple way to save the UI state not any complex method. Another important point to remember is, my WPF application don't use any external database or any other web data services so, that I save the UI state over the internet and fetch it whenever I want to use at the time of starting my application.

All the saving process of the UI state of my WPF application should be done locally in the client machine on which the application is running.

Hui Liu-MSFT 36,571 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-07-21T05:25:19.793+00:00
Hi,@MERUN KUMAR MAITY .
You could bind control (Width, Height, IsSelected, etc.) properties to properties of the binding source (ViewModel) and it will automatically save your temporary state.

For example, you can set the IsExpanded and IsSelected properties of a TreeView bound to a ViewModel as shown below.

<Style TargetType="{x:Type TreeViewItem}"> <Setter Property="IsExpanded" Value="{Binding IsExpanded, Mode=TwoWay}" /> <Setter Property="IsSelected" Value="{Binding IsSelected, Mode=TwoWay}" /> </Style>

For permanent saving, you could serialize your ViewModel and Save it on disk and load it when needed. You can refer here for more details.
MERUN KUMAR MAITY 511 Reputation points

2022-07-21T10:19:47.53+00:00

Thank you very much sir, as you always here to help me. Sir, I don't understand anything from your given example. It is very difficult to understand for me, it's too hard and complex. Kindly please give me a step by step instruction rather than giving stack overflow code snippet. Give me a full source code example with combo box, check box, tree view and save it's state before closing the application. The application should MVVM base.

Make a demo project with this functionalities and give me the download link otherwise give answer with full source code.
Hui Liu-MSFT 36,571 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2023-03-16T06:54:51.55+00:00

Hi,@MERUN KUMAR MAITY . Are the solution A and solution B helpful to you?