Thumbnail image of UserControl or Window

Question

In other words, what is the best way to capture an image of the contents of a UserControl (with other controls on it) or a Window?

 

Thank you.

Answer 1

You have a tool called Kaxaml (a lightweight advanced xaml editor like xamlpad) that allows you to create png images from your xaml markup while maintaining transparency.

 

If you are using styles in a resourcestyledictionary for your project it gets a little tricky as you have to put all the resources in the same xaml markup instead of using a separate file. Also that snapshot feature works only for Pages (no Windows / UserControl). So you would have to put your xaml inside the Pages tag instead of UserControl. If you don't need the transparency Ctrl + PrntScreen is the easy lazy option. If your looking for perfection you would have to look into photoshop, illustrator etc.

 

Ananth

Answer 2

I meant to do this from software code.

 

I know of one way using VisualBrush but that seems too complex.

 

Thank you

Answer 3

If you want to save to disk you can use RenderTargetBitmap like this:

//export to image //TODO: add error checking

private bool exportToImage(string path, Visual v)

{

RenderTargetBitmap targetBitmap =

new RenderTargetBitmap((int)v.Width,

(int)v.Height,

96d, 96d,

PixelFormats.Pbgra32);

targetBitmap.Render(v);

// add the RenderTargetBitmap to a Bitmapencoder

//BmpBitmapEncoder encoder = new BmpBitmapEncoder();

PngBitmapEncoder encoder = new PngBitmapEncoder();

encoder.Frames.Add(BitmapFrame.Create(targetBitmap));

// save file to disk

using (System.IO.FileStream fs = System.IO.File.Open(path, System.IO.FileMode.OpenOrCreate))

{

encoder.Save(fs);

}

return true;

}

If what you want to do is actually embed the thumbnail image somewhere else in your application, you can try something like this using VisualBrush.

 

Answer 4

joeAtBluebeam's code is great!

Answer 5

Ananth878 said:

You have a tool called Kaxaml (a lightweight advanced xaml editor like xamlpad) that allows you to create png images from your xaml markup while maintaining transparency.

 

If you are using styles in a resourcestyledictionary for your project it gets a little tricky as you have to put all the resources in the same xaml markup instead of using a separate file. Also that snapshot feature works only for Pages (no Windows / UserControl). So you would have to put your xaml inside the Pages tag instead of UserControl. If you don't need the transparency Ctrl + PrntScreen is the easy lazy option. If your looking for perfection you would have to look into photoshop, illustrator etc.

 

Ananth

Agree!  I usually use the second method.