This feels like a stupid question, but is there a simple control for WPF that just displays a collection of items? I am currently using a ListBox to display a collection of usercontrols, but the selection element is not needed and the highlighting is actually a distraction. I could disable the highlighting, but this seems like extra work if a simpler control exists. I don't need to track the selected item.
Basically, I want a stackpanel that I can just define an itemssource of viewmodels for. Does such a thing exist?
You can use an ItemsControl - it's pretty much exactly what you are looking for
Related
I have a DataGrid and I need to add an Expander control dynamically to group few rows based on some conditions... Can anyone help me in this... I am completely new to Silverlight :(
Found the answer, I have created a separate column for the expander and managed to display it when my condition is satisfied. It is not dynamic though, but solved the purpose. :)
Dynamically--not sure what you want. I've done expanders statically. My two cents: keep it simple and don't try and do too much. If by dynamically you are taking about Master/Details data gridview, that can be done by XAML and loading the gridview with an ObservableCollection class (search the net). Also search for PagedCollectionView and .Visibility properties for controls. If you want to add controls to a StackPanel, dynamically, search the net for .Children.Remove methods.
Good luck, but as a beginner you are probably trying to do too much IMO.
I need some kind of control to wrap my UI (which generates using binding). Currently I use ListBox but not sure if it's lightest or best choice. I just need placeholder that I can bind to and insert my controls.
You're probably looking for the ItemsControl
You can use any control that takes a list of entities as it's data source.
This could be DataGrid, ListBox (as you are already using) or anything that inherits from ItemsControl - this includes things like the TabControl as well.
I have an mvvm application...I need to have an editable listview.
I am binding my observable collection to listview.
How could I track changes of the values in listview ?...I mean if user edit an item...I need to have changed values in my observable collection.
If I use datagrid in WPFToolKit, is it easy ?
In a word, yes.
Take a look at data templates in WPF. They allow you to define how you want each item in your list (or any control) to appear and behave. So each item in your listview can one or more editable controls that are bound to each item in your collection (in this case an ObservableCollection). As you change data in the listview, the bound objects will in your collection will be updated in real time.
This is also possible with a datagrid.
Have a look at this link
http://www.switchonthecode.com/tutorials/wpf-tutorial-using-the-listview-part-3-in-place-edit
It is recommended you to use the Datagrid.It already provides the edit mode functionality. You can use a TemplateColumn to provide editing views.
if you have an editable Collection in your viewmodel, just take a datagrid(editable stuff built in). you can create styles or use templates so that the datagrid look the way you want.
If I use datagrid in WPFToolKit, is it easy ?
yes ;) but if you can, use the .net4 datagrid
Well I'm designing a Custom WPF control - fore the sake of learning - that display logs message in a similar way Visual Studio does. I want to allow the user add messages by adding message istances to an Items collection, or by binding to an ItemSource. I think this is a well established pattern in many wpf controls, but I have no Idea on how achieve it. I know I can obtain the same result by adding a listview as a part of my control, but the project goal is learning, so I prefer avoid that solution. Any idea ?
Have a read around the ItemsControl, your custom control can inherit from an ItemsControl, or a derivative of it. If you create an ObservableCollection containing your items and bind that to your ItemsSource, then your list will be automatically updated. You can style the ItemTemplate and Template to give the list a different look and feel.
There's loads of info here
I currently need to create a visual representation of a ferry system that displays the actual ferries their position on the sea and the state of their cargo. The ferries contain trucks and the trucks contain cars. I need to display the actual trucks and their xy postion on the deck. When the ferries are loaded the postions of the trucks are updated frequently so the look animated. Also I need to display the actual cars on the trucks. Trucks, cars and ferries have some states that need to be displayed too. So I have a hierarchical structure of data that I need to visualize in a rather realistic manner.
What would be a good way to implement this kind of stuff in WPF? Should I use MVVM with one TreeView control and create a HierarchicalDataTemplates for sea, ferry, truck and car and a ControlTemplate for the TreeView? Or should I better use UserControls and compose and update them in code instead of databinding to observable collections of the ViewModel. Do you have any experience with this? How would you do this? Could you sketch out class/control setup?
I'd recommend making a "lookless" control as opposed to making user controls. Generally I use user controls as glue/container for my lookless controls. An example of a lookless control is the Button class. It contains a default style and in Blend, you can modify the style all you like. It also supports the visual state manager so you can change how the presentation looks when states change. You can think of the codebehind of a lookless control as a mini ViewModel. Here it is ok to mix some presentation stuff and your domain classes.
If you follow this same design, you could create a Ferry lookless control. This control would have a set of it's own dependency properties (possibly listening to the OnChange of the DP).
Your Ferry control may have an ObservableCollection DP called "Trucks".
Then in your Themes\generic.xaml, create a default style for your Ferry control. Your default style may have an ItemsControl with an ItemsSource={TemplateBinding Trucks}. The ItemsControl panel template, could be your own custom panel for arranging the Trucks, or maybe you use a Canvas. For the ItemsControl items template, you would have something like this:
<DataTemplate>
<mynamespace:TruckControl/>
</DataTemplate>
You Truck control, would also be a lookless control with it's own default style, and it's data context will already be set, so you can directly do the {Binding Path=xyz}. Your Truck control could also set it's Canvas.Left/Top (if you chose to use a canvas in the pervious items control..or maybe it doesn't set its position at all if you made a custom panel for it) or a render transform as to put it at the correct X,Y. You could also use the items control in the truck's template to render out the cars in the same fashion you rendered out the trucks in the ferry control. Also its possible to create states for the VisualStateManager as to make it fully Blend supportable. So if a truck goes into a "problem state" you could easily style that state in blend to make it blink red, for instance.
I know it sounds like a lot to digest, but in the end having stylable controls all supporting an MVVM model will make your life 1000000x easier.
I'd suggest studying Microsoft's silverlight toolkit to get a good idea how to do lookless controls and such. Try looking at a simple control, like the DatePicker ( http://silverlight.codeplex.com/SourceControl/changeset/view/25992# ) One caveat is ignore DatePicker.xaml file (it's just a mirror of what gets put in generic.xaml and nothing bad would happen if you just deleted it).
The things you should pay close attention to are:
1.) The attributes on the class. These help Blend know how to deal with your control.
2.) The OnApplyTemplate override. This is where you can pull out specific elements from your template. These are known as "parts" and you will see the parts tab in Blend. The attributes in #1 can define what "parts" are in the template and what type they are expected to be.
3.) The DefaultStyleKey = typeof(...) in the constructor. This tells Silverlight what default template to use in the generic.xaml
4.) Look at Themes\generic.xaml. This is a special hardcoded file location that stores all your default templates. Search for the DatePicker style and you will get the idea :)
Good luck!
I just wanted to let you know, how I actually implemented it. It turned out that it was not necessary at all, to write custom controls or UserControls for this. All I did, was writing datatemplates for the car, ship, ferry, truck etc ViewModels. For example the datatemplate for the FerryViewModel contained an ItemsControl with a ItemsPanel of type Canvas (to be able to position the trucks) and an ItemTemplate that was a DataTemplate for TruckViewModel. A very simple and fast approach.
I'd suggest having one user control handle all the drawing. Otherwise you can get lost the the hierarchy of objects. Also it makes it easier if another item was added, say people in cars, trucks and ferries.
If your model is hierarchical then you can just pass in the top level into the control, and let the control sort itself out.
MVVM works well for existing controls, but existing WPF controls only work if there's a control that's close to what you need, and with a few tweaks would work. I can't think of a standard control in WPF that's close to what you need, so it's time to write a new control.
WPF works really really well with view models. If you can keep code behind away until specifically needed then you can separate ui from data so much more easily. It will allow your ui's to be some much more upgradeable if the data model doesn't change between different display.