PointerPressed not working on left click

Question

Creating Metro (Microsoft UI) app for Windows 8 on WPF+C#, I met difficulty with PointerPressed event on a button. Event doesn't happen when i perform left-click (by mouse), but it happens in case with right-click or tap. So what's wrong with that event? for example

 <Button x:Name="Somebutton"  Width="100" Height="100"
PointerPressed="Somebutton_PointerPressed"/>

Answer 1

The solution is pretty simple: these events have to be handled not through XAML but thorugh AddHandler method.

SomeButton.AddHandler(PointerPressedEvent, 
new PointerEventHandler(SomeButton_PointerPressed), true); 

Answer 2

I have encountered this problem, but was not able to use the accepted answer because my buttons were created dynamically by an ItemsControl, and there was no good place to call AddHandler from.

Instead, I sub-classed Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.Button:

public sealed class PressAndHoldButton : Button
{
    public event EventHandler PointerPressPreview = delegate { };

    protected override void OnPointerPressed(PointerRoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        PointerPressPreview(this, EventArgs.Empty);
        base.OnPointerPressed(e);
    }
}

Now, the consuming control can bind to PointerPressPreview instead of PointerPressed

<local:PressAndHoldButton
    x:Name="Somebutton"
    Width="100" 
    Height="100"
    PointerPressPreview="Somebutton_PointerPressed"/>

If you want, you can stuff some additional logic in the overridden OnPointerPressed method so that it only fires the event on left-click, or right-click. Whatever you want.

Answer 3

FWIW, I've been facing the same issue and solved it by adding the event handler to some other control (but a button).

In my case I had a Button wrapped around a SymbolIcon like so:

<Button PointerPressed="OnTempoPressed" PointerReleased="OnTempoReleased">
  <SymbolIcon Symbol="Add" />
</Button>

What I did I just removed the Button wrap and added the handlers to the SymbolIcon itself everything works now:

<SymbolIcon Symbol="Add"
  PointerPressed="OnTempoPressed" PointerReleased="OnTempoReleased"/>

Answer 4

If you are you are working with a Button control then try to attach event with "Click" event.

Please note that Button control internally consider and handles PointerPressed, MouseLeftButtonDown, MouseLeftButtonUp and raise Click event. Generally Button control wont allow PointerPressed, MouseLeftButtonDown, MouseLeftButtonUp event to bubble up and fire.