WPF Databinding a Custom Control - wpf

Question

So I've spent about two hours pounding my head against the desk trying everything I can think of to bind to a property on a custom control and none of it works. If I have something like this:
<Grid Name="Form1">
<mine:SomeControl MyProp="{Binding ElementName=Form1, Path=DataContext.Enable}"/>
<Button Click="toggleEnabled_Click"/>
</Grid>
public class TestPage : Page
{
private TestForm _form;
public TestPage()
{
InitializeComponent();
_form = new TestForm();
Form1.DataContext = _form;
}
public void toggleEnabled_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
_form.Enable = !_form.Enable;
}
}
TestForm looks like:
public class TestForm
{
private bool _enable;
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
public bool Enable
{
get { return _enable; }
set { _enable = value; OnPropertyChanged("Enable"); }
}
protected void OnPropertyChanged(string name)
{
PropertyChangedEventHandler handler = PropertyChanged;
if (handler != null)
{
handler(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(name));
}
}
}
And my control looks like:
<UserControl>
<TextBox Name="TestBox"/>
</UserControl>
public class SomeControl : UserControl
{
public static readonly DependencyProperty MyPropProperty =
DependencyProperty.Register("MyProp", typeof(bool), typeof(SomeControl));
public bool MyProp
{
get { return (bool)GetValue(MyPropProperty); }
set { SetValue(MyPropProperty, value); }
}
public SomeControl()
{
InitializeComponent();
DependencyPropertyDescriptor.FromProperty(MyPropProperty)
.AddValueChanged(this, Enable);
}
public void Enable(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
TestBox.IsEnabled = (bool)GetValue(MyPropProperty);
}
}
Absolutely nothing happens when I click the toggle button. If I put a breakpoint inside of the Enable callback it is never hit, whats the deal?

Answer 1

If the Enabled method does not do any more than setting the propertou you could drop it and bind the TextBox.IsEnabled directly:
<UserControl Name="control">
<TextBox IsEnabled="{Binding MyProp, ElementName=control}"/>
</UserControl>
If you want to keep such a method you should register a property changed callback via UIPropertyMetadata for the dependency property.
Also this binding is redundant:
{Binding ElementName=Form1, Path=DataContext.Enable}
The DataContext is inherited (if you don't set it in the UserControl (which you should never do!)), so you can just use:
{Binding Enable}
Further if there is trouble with any of the bindings: There are ways to debug them.