Basic Silverlight Binding - silverlight

Question

I can't figure out why the binding changes in my large project wont work. I have simplified it down to a sample project that still doesn't work. I would like to continue to set the datacontext the way I currently am if possible because that is how the other project does it. With the following code the text in SomeText is not showing up in the textbox. How do I fix this?
Code Behind:
public partial class MainPage : UserControl
{
public MainPage()
{
InitializeComponent();
DataContext = new ViewModel();
}
}
Data Class:
public class ViewModel
{
public string SomeText = "This is some text.";
}
Main User Control:
<UserControl xmlns:ig="http://schemas.infragistics.com/xaml" x:Class="XamGridVisibilityBindingTest.MainPage"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
xmlns:XamGridVisibilityBindingTest="clr-namespace:XamGridVisibilityBindingTest" mc:Ignorable="d"
d:DesignHeight="300" d:DesignWidth="400">
<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="White">
<TextBox Text="{Binding SomeText}" BorderBrush="#FFE80F0F" Width="100" Height="50"> </TextBox>
</Grid>
</UserControl>
Edit: I am only trying to do one-way binding.

Answer 1

You need to use a property, and make your VM inherit from INotifyPropertyChanged and raise the PropertyChanged event whenever SomeText changes:
public class ViewModel : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
private string someText;
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
public string SomeText
{
get { return someText; }
set
{
someText = value;
if (PropertyChanged != null)
{
PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("SomeText"));
}
}
}
public ViewModel()
{
SomeText = "This is some text.";
}
}

Answer 2

I figured it out, you can only bind to Properties!
public class ViewModel
{
public string SomeText { get; set; }
public ViewModel()
{
SomeText = "This is some text.";
}
}