OnMouseMove does not fire on canvas in WPF

This is wierd and I dont know why...

FrameworkElement.MouseMove works only if the region has some explicit background brush \ fill set.

In your case set the Canvas.Background="Transparent", it should work.

There is another fix to this as well... WPF Not sending MouseMove events after CaptureMouse();

This could be possibly because the HitTest depends upon colored pixels and their feedback.

Whatever it is, its something not documented over MSDN and is confusing for many UI designers.


I ended up in writing a mouse global mouse handler like this:

using System.Windows.Interop;

private const int WM_MOUSEMOVE = 0x0200;
public delegate void Del_MouseMovedEvent(Point mousePosition);

// Relative to this control, the mouse position will calculated
public IInputElement Elmt_MouseMovedRelativeElement = null;

// !! This is static; needs special treatment in a multithreaded application !!
public static event Del_MouseMovedEvent Evt_TheMouseMoved = null;

// your main function call
public MyMainWindows()
{
    // install the windows message filter first
    ComponentDispatcher.ThreadFilterMessage += ComponentDispatcher_ThreadFilterMessage;

    InitializeComponent();

    ...
}   

// filtering the windows messages
private void ComponentDispatcher_ThreadFilterMessage(ref MSG msg, ref bool handled)
{
    if(msg.message == WM_MOUSEMOVE)
    {
        this.Evt_TheMouseMoved?.Invoke(Mouse.GetPosition(this.Elmt_MouseMovedRelativeElement));
    }
}

// individual event for mouse movement
private void MyMouseMove(Point mousePoint)
{
    // called on every mouse move when event is assigned
    Console.WriteLine(mousePoint.X + " " + mousePoint.Y);
}

private void AnyFunctionDeeperInTheCode()
{
    // assign the handler to the static var of the main window
    MyMainWindows.Evt_TheMouseMoved += MyMouseMove;

    // set the element / control to which the mouse position should be calculated; 
    MyMainWindows.Elmt_MouseMovedRelativeElement = this;

    ...

    // undassign the handler from the static var of the main window
    MyMainWindows.Evt_TheMouseMoved -= MyMouseMove;
}