Navigating WPF’s Visual Tree

There are many times when I’ve needed to navigate up or down WPF’s Visual Tree from the code behind to find an object, so I finally decided to put all my visual tree navigation code into a single helper class.

For example, to find controls I can now use the following syntax:

// Search up the VisualTree to find DataGrid 
// containing specific Cell
var parent = VisualTreeHelpers.FindAncestor<DataGrid>(myDataGridCell);

// Search down the VisualTree to find a CheckBox 
// in this DataGridCell
var child = VisualTreeHelpers.FindChild<CheckBox>(myDataGridCell);

// Search up the VisualTree to find a TextBox 
// named SearchTextBox
var searchBox = VisualTreeHelpers.FindAncestor<TextBox>(myDataGridCell, "SeachTextBox");

// Search down the VisualTree to find a Label
// named MyCheckBoxLabel
var specificChild = VisualTreeHelpers.FindChild<Label>(myDataGridCell, "MyCheckBoxLabel");

And here’s the VisualTreeHelpers class

using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Media;

namespace MyNamespace
{
    public class VisualTreeHelpers
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Returns the first ancester of specified type
        /// </summary>
        public static T FindAncestor<T>(DependencyObject current)
        where T : DependencyObject
        {
            current = VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(current);

            while (current != null)
            {
                if (current is T)
                {
                    return (T)current;
                }
                current = VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(current);
            };
            return null;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Returns a specific ancester of an object
        /// </summary>
        public static T FindAncestor<T>(DependencyObject current, T lookupItem)
        where T : DependencyObject
        {
            while (current != null)
            {
                if (current is T && current == lookupItem)
                {
                    return (T)current;
                }
                current = VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(current);
            };
            return null;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Finds an ancestor object by name and type
        /// </summary>
        public static T FindAncestor<T>(DependencyObject current, string parentName)
        where T : DependencyObject
        {
            while (current != null)
            {
                if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(parentName))
                {
                    var frameworkElement = current as FrameworkElement;
                    if (current is T && frameworkElement != null && frameworkElement.Name == parentName)
                    {
                        return (T)current;
                    }
                }
                else if (current is T)
                {
                    return (T)current;
                }
                current = VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(current);
            };

            return null;

        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Looks for a child control within a parent by name
        /// </summary>
        public static T FindChild<T>(DependencyObject parent, string childName)
        where T : DependencyObject
        {
            // Confirm parent and childName are valid.
            if (parent == null) return null;

            T foundChild = null;

            int childrenCount = VisualTreeHelper.GetChildrenCount(parent);
            for (int i = 0; i < childrenCount; i++)
            {
                var child = VisualTreeHelper.GetChild(parent, i);
                // If the child is not of the request child type child
                T childType = child as T;
                if (childType == null)
                {
                    // recursively drill down the tree
                    foundChild = FindChild<T>(child, childName);

                    // If the child is found, break so we do not overwrite the found child.
                    if (foundChild != null) break;
                }
                else if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(childName))
                {
                    var frameworkElement = child as FrameworkElement;
                    // If the child's name is set for search
                    if (frameworkElement != null && frameworkElement.Name == childName)
                    {
                        // if the child's name is of the request name
                        foundChild = (T)child;
                        break;
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        // recursively drill down the tree
                        foundChild = FindChild<T>(child, childName);

                        // If the child is found, break so we do not overwrite the found child.
                        if (foundChild != null) break;
                    }
                }
                else
                {
                    // child element found.
                    foundChild = (T)child;
                    break;
                }
            }

            return foundChild;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Looks for a child control within a parent by type
        /// </summary>
        public static T FindChild<T>(DependencyObject parent)
            where T : DependencyObject
        {
            // Confirm parent is valid.
            if (parent == null) return null;

            T foundChild = null;

            int childrenCount = VisualTreeHelper.GetChildrenCount(parent);
            for (int i = 0; i < childrenCount; i++)
            {
                var child = VisualTreeHelper.GetChild(parent, i);
                // If the child is not of the request child type child
                T childType = child as T;
                if (childType == null)
                {
                    // recursively drill down the tree
                    foundChild = FindChild<T>(child);

                    // If the child is found, break so we do not overwrite the found child.
                    if (foundChild != null) break;
                }
                else
                {
                    // child element found.
                    foundChild = (T)child;
                    break;
                }
            }
            return foundChild;
        }    
	}
}

Edit: Finally the link where I got the original code from. I’ve made some modifications to it, but the original code can be found here.