Add and run a WPF project to an existing solution

Question

Hi,
(VISUAL STUDIO 2019)
I have a VSTO project (I think the question can be for Winforms projects as well).
I have a WPF project that I want to interact with from the VSTO project and back.

I managed to run (process.start with parameters) the the WPF exe from the VSTO but it's not good enough because I want to be able to communicate between the two projects.

I added the WPF project to the VSTO solution, and added a reference from the VSTO to the WPF and then create a "common project" that both projects reference to be able to pass data in common models.

I am able to run the WPF project from the VSTO (when the user clicks a button, in the UI of the VSTO, I call App.Main() in the WPF project).

The problem is that if I try to use App.Main() again (to call the WPF project again) I get an exception because I can not create a second Application in the appdomain.

Any thoughts on how I can accomplish this (my way or any other way that will let me interact between the two projects).

Thank you

Yaron

I tried different ways to

Answer 1

I create a WordDocument project named WordDocumentTest in VSTO follow the steps in Create the project and a WPF project named WpfAppRunInVSTO.

Step 1: Add WpfAppRunInVSTO as reference in WordDocumentTest

Step 2: Add below references: PresentationCore,PresentationFramework,WindowsBase to WordDocumentTest

Step 3: Add a button in the Document with a Click event

Step 4: The code for ThisDocument

public partial class ThisDocument  
    {  
        private void ThisDocument_Startup(object sender, System.EventArgs e)  
        {  
            this.Paragraphs[2].Range.InsertParagraphAfter();  
            this.Paragraphs[3].Range.Text = "This text was added by using code.";  
            this.Paragraphs[3].Range.Bold = 50;  
  
            this.Paragraphs[3].Range.InsertParagraphAfter();  
  
            this.Paragraphs[4].Range.InsertDateTime();  
  
        }  
  
        private void ThisDocument_Shutdown(object sender, System.EventArgs e)  
        {  
        }  
  
        #region VSTO Designer generated code  
        private void InternalStartup()  
        {  
            this.button1.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.button1_Click);  
            this.Startup += new System.EventHandler(this.ThisDocument_Startup);  
            this.Shutdown += new System.EventHandler(this.ThisDocument_Shutdown);  
  
        }  
  
        #endregion  
  
        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)  
        {  
            var t = new Thread(() =>  
            {  
                MainWindow window = new MainWindow();  
                window.Closed += (s2, e2) => window.Dispatcher.InvokeShutdown();  
                window.Show();  
                System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.Run();  
            });  
  
            t.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA);  
            t.Start();  
           
        }  

The result picture as below shown:

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