Get native Window handle from control

[niksedk]

Description

I would like to port a Winforms desktop app which uses a native lib to render video - so the app should have different code for different platforms, but I was unable to find a way to get an IntPtr Windows handle from e.g. a BoxView.

Public API Changes

I do not know where this functionality should be added...

Intended Use-Case

In Winforms we can do something like this:

_libvlc_media_player_set_hwnd(mediaPlayer, panelVideo.Handle); // Render video on Windows in a panel control

It would be very useful to have a similar feature in Maui - if it's not already available.

[jfversluis]

I think we only have this on a window level now, but you're asking on a control level, right?

[niksedk]

I think we only have this on a window level now, but you're asking on a control level, right?

Yes, that's correct.

[PureWeen]

@niksedk we've added the Window property to every single control. Once the view has been added to a control you can use BoxView.Window.Handler.PlatformView to return the platform window and then get the handle from that. Does that work for you for now?

[niksedk]

@PureWeen: thanks for the Window property :)

I've added a BoxView to my app created with the default template:

            <BoxView 
                x:Name="BoxView1"
                WidthRequest="400"
                HeightRequest="200"
                MaximumHeightRequest="200"
                MaximumWidthRequest="400"
                />

In the OnCounterClicked method I've added:

#if WINDOWS
  videoPlayer.Initialize((IntPtr)(BoxView1.Window.Handler.PlatformView as MauiWinUIWindow).WindowHandle, "video.mp4");
#endif

Which seems to make a video player in the whole app window:

Any ideas?

[mattleibow]

This may be possible once you have the native WinUI control. So if you do BoxView.Handler.PlatformView as Microsoft.UI.Xaml.Element there may be a way.

I would actually suggest talking to the WinUI experts over on https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml as I am not sure myself if I know of a proper (or a bit hacky) way to do this. It may also be the case that there is no HWND by default as these may not be "normal" controls and you have to add some sort of special composition or HWND-supporting panel.

But again, not sure we can be as helpful as we would like and opening a new issue on how to get a HWND from a UI element in WinUI 3 will be the solution. And then you take that and just use the PlatformView value from MAUI to merge the two worlds.

I am going to close this issue not because it is unimportant, but more that we can't really help. If there is anything that we have to do to make it work, please come back here and let us know so we can investigate on our side.

[ghost]

Hello lovely human, thank you for your comment on this issue. Because this issue has been closed for a period of time, please strongly consider opening a new issue linking to this issue instead to ensure better visibility of your comment. Thank you!