🍒 Lucy Berry’s Super Sweet Guide: How to Store and Load Images in WPF Like a Pro! 🍒

Hey, my lovely little berries! 🍓💕
Today, we are going to learn how to turn images into Blob data and then bring them back to life as adorable, colorful pictures in WPF! 🌸✨

You might have an Image Control (ImagePreview02) in WPF and want to store the image in a database as a Blob (a big chunk of binary data 🍫). But…uh oh! 😵 You got an error like this:

🚨 System.ArgumentException: 'Object of type 'System.String' cannot be converted to type 'Fw.Data.Blob'.'

No worries, my berry besties! 🍒 Let’s break it down step by step in a super simple, cute, and fun way! 💖

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🍓 Step 1: Understanding the Magical Image Flow! ✨

Before we jump into coding, let’s visualize how an image travels through our program! 🏃‍♀️🎨

📸 Step 1: User selects or loads an image into ImagePreview02.
🔄 Step 2: We convert it into a byte array (Blob) and store it safely in a database.
📥 Step 3: When we need it again, we retrieve it from the database and turn it back into a displayable image! 💕

👀 Here’s a cute little diagram! 🎀

[Image in UI] → 🎀 Convert to Bytes (Blob) 🎀 → [Stored in Database]
[Retrieve from Database] → 🎀 Convert Back to Image 🎀 → [Image in UI]

Awww! Now our image can go on a cute little adventure into the database and back! 🎠🌈✨

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🍒 Step 2: Convert ImageSource to Blob Data (byte[])

Now, let’s create a magical method to turn our pretty images into a Blob before we store them! 🍩

🎀 CherryBerryImageConverter.cs 🍒

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Media.Imaging;

public class CherryBerryImageConverter 🍒
{
    public static byte[] ConvertImageToBlob(ImageSource berryImage) 🍓
    {
        if (berryImage == null) return null; // If no image, return nothing 😢

        BitmapSource berryBitmap = berryImage as BitmapSource;
        if (berryBitmap == null) return null;

        using (MemoryStream cherryStream = new MemoryStream()) 🍒
        {
            BitmapEncoder berryEncoder = new PngBitmapEncoder(); // We use PNG, but you can use JPEG too!
            berryEncoder.Frames.Add(BitmapFrame.Create(berryBitmap));
            berryEncoder.Save(cherryStream);
            return cherryStream.ToArray(); // Convert it into a byte array 🍓
        }
    }
}

🍓 What’s Happening Here?

✨ We take the ImageSource (berryImage) and turn it into a BitmapSource.
✨ We save it into a MemoryStream as a PNG file.
✨ Then, we convert it to a byte array (byte[]), which is a Blob! 🍒

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🍓 Step 3: Store the Blob in Our Cute Little Database! 🎀

We need a cute and cozy home for our image Blob in the database! 🏡

🎀 CherryBerryImageModel.cs 🍒

using Fw.Data;

public class CherryBerryImageModel 🍒
{
    public int Id { get; set; } // Unique ID for each cherry berry picture! 🍓
    public Blob BerryBlob { get; set; } // Our magical image data! ✨
}

🎀 CherryBerryDatabaseHelper.cs 🍒

public class CherryBerryDatabaseHelper 🍒
{
    public void SaveBerryImageToDatabase(byte[] berryBlob) 🍓
    {
        if (berryBlob == null) return;

        var berryData = new CherryBerryImageModel
        {
            BerryBlob = new Blob(berryBlob) // Store the berryBlob safely 🍓
        };

        using (var dbContext = new CherryBerryDbContext()) 🍒
        {
            dbContext.CherryBerryImages.Add(berryData);
            dbContext.SaveChanges(); // Save the berry to the database! 🍒✨
        }
    }
}

🍓 What’s Happening Here?

✨ We create a model (CherryBerryImageModel) to store images in the database!
✨ We save the byte array (berryBlob) into a Blob field in the database!

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🍒 Step 4: Retrieve the Blob and Show the Image Again!

Now that our image is safely stored, let’s bring it back to life and display it in ImagePreview02! 🍓🎀

🎀 Convert Blob Back to Image

public static ImageSource ConvertBlobToImage(byte[] berryBlob) 🍓
{
    if (berryBlob == null || berryBlob.Length == 0) return null;

    using (MemoryStream berryStream = new MemoryStream(berryBlob)) 🍒
    {
        BitmapImage berryImage = new BitmapImage();
        berryImage.BeginInit();
        berryImage.StreamSource = berryStream;
        berryImage.CacheOption = BitmapCacheOption.OnLoad;
        berryImage.EndInit();
        return berryImage; // Return a beautiful image again! 🎀
    }
}

🎀 Display Image in ImagePreview02

byte[] berryBlobFromDb = myDatabaseHelper.GetBerryBlobFromDatabase();
ImagePreview02.Source = ConvertBlobToImage(berryBlobFromDb);

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🍓 ✨ Final Summary: The Super Sweet Image Flow! 🍒

✔ We turned an Image into a Blob (byte[]) using ConvertImageToBlob! 🍓
✔ We stored the Blob in a database with SaveBerryImageToDatabase! 🍒
✔ We retrieved the Blob from the database and converted it back into an Image! 🎀
✔ We displayed the Image back in ImagePreview02 with ConvertBlobToImage! 🍓✨

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🎀 Lucy Berry’s Final Sweet Words! 🍒

✨ Great job, my cute little coders! 🎀 You now know how to store and retrieve images as Blobs in WPF like a real Cherry Berry Developer! 🍓

💖 Now go ahead and add some adorable images to your WPF app! 🎨✨ Let me know if you have any berry cute questions! 🍒💌