Mutually Exclusive comboboxes that binds to same data source - MVVM implementation - wpf

Question

I'm not sure my Title is right but this is the problem I am facing now.. I have the below XAML code..
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
<ComboBox ItemsSource="{Binding Path=AvailableFields}"
SelectedItem="{Binding Path=SelectedField}"
></ComboBox>
</StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
What this basically does is, If my data source contains ten items, this is going to generate 10 row of comboboxes and all comboboxes are bounded to the same itemsource.
Now my requirement is Once an item is selected in the first combo box, that item should not be available in the subsequent combo boxes. How to satisfy this requirement in MVVM and WPF?

Answer 1

This turned out to be harder than I thought when I started coding it. Below sample does what you want. The comboboxes will contain all letters that are still available and not selected in another combobox.
XAML:
<Window x:Class="TestApp.Window1"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
Title="Window1" Height="300" Width="300">
<StackPanel>
<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding Path=SelectedLetters}">
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<ComboBox
ItemsSource="{Binding Path=AvailableLetters}"
SelectedItem="{Binding Path=Letter}" />
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>
</StackPanel>
</Window>
Code behind:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Linq;
using System.Windows;
namespace TestApp
{
public partial class Window1 : Window
{
public Window1()
{
InitializeComponent();
DataContext = new VM();
}
}
public class VM : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
public VM()
{
SelectedLetters = new List<LetterItem>();
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
LetterItem letterItem = new LetterItem();
letterItem.PropertyChanged += OnLetterItemPropertyChanged;
SelectedLetters.Add(letterItem);
}
}
public List<LetterItem> SelectedLetters { get; private set; }
private void OnLetterItemPropertyChanged(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
if (e.PropertyName != "Letter")
{
return;
}
foreach (LetterItem letterItem in SelectedLetters)
{
letterItem.RefreshAvailableLetters(SelectedLetters);
}
}
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
public class LetterItem : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
static LetterItem()
{
_allLetters = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ".Select(c => c.ToString());
}
public LetterItem()
{
AvailableLetters = _allLetters;
}
public void RefreshAvailableLetters(IEnumerable<LetterItem> letterItems)
{
AvailableLetters = _allLetters.Where(c => !letterItems.Any(li => li.Letter == c) || c == Letter);
}
private IEnumerable<string> _availableLetters;
public IEnumerable<string> AvailableLetters
{
get { return _availableLetters; }
private set
{
_availableLetters = value;
if (PropertyChanged != null)
{
PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("AvailableLetters"));
}
}
}
private string _letter;
public string Letter
{
get { return _letter; }
set
{
if (_letter == value)
{
return;
}
_letter = value;
if (PropertyChanged != null)
{
PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("Letter"));
}
}
}
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
private static readonly IEnumerable<string> _allLetters;
}
}
}

Answer 2

This functionality is not provided by WPF, but it can be implemented using some custom coding.
I've created 3 ViewModel classes:
PreferencesVM - This will be our DataContext. It contains the master list of options which can appear in the ComboBoxes, and also contains a SelectedOptions property, which keeps track of which items are selected in the various ComboBoxes. It also has a Preferences property, which we will bind our ItemsControl.ItemsSource to.
PreferenceVM - This represents one ComboBox. It has a SelectedOption property, which ComboBox.SelectedItem is bound to. It also has a reference to PreferencesVM, and a property named Options (ComboBox.ItemsSource is bound to this), which returns the Options on PreferencesVM via a filter which checks if the item may be displayed in the ComboBox.
OptionVM - Represents a row in the ComboBox.
The following points form the key to the solution:
When PreferenceVM.SelectedOption is set (ie a ComboBoxItem is selected), the item is added to the PreferencesVM.AllOptions collection.
PreferenceVM handles Preferences.SelectedItems.CollectionChanged, and triggers a refresh by raising PropertyChanged for the Options property.
PreferenceVM.Options uses a filter to decide which items to return - which only allows items which are not in PreferencesVM.SelectedOptions, unless they are the SelectedOption.
What I've described above might be enough to get you going, but to save you the headache I'll post my code below.
PreferencesVM.cs:
public class PreferencesVM
{
public PreferencesVM()
{
PreferenceVM pref1 = new PreferenceVM(this);
PreferenceVM pref2 = new PreferenceVM(this);
PreferenceVM pref3 = new PreferenceVM(this);
this._preferences.Add(pref1);
this._preferences.Add(pref2);
this._preferences.Add(pref3);
//Only three ComboBoxes, but you can add more here.
OptionVM optRed = new OptionVM("Red");
OptionVM optGreen = new OptionVM("Green");
OptionVM optBlue = new OptionVM("Blue");
_allOptions.Add(optRed);
_allOptions.Add(optGreen);
_allOptions.Add(optBlue);
}
private ObservableCollection<OptionVM> _selectedOptions =new ObservableCollection<OptionVM>();
public ObservableCollection<OptionVM> SelectedOptions
{
get { return _selectedOptions; }
}
private ObservableCollection<OptionVM> _allOptions = new ObservableCollection<OptionVM>();
public ObservableCollection<OptionVM> AllOptions
{
get { return _allOptions; }
}
private ObservableCollection<PreferenceVM> _preferences = new ObservableCollection<PreferenceVM>();
public ObservableCollection<PreferenceVM> Preferences
{
get { return _preferences; }
}
}
PreferenceVM.cs:
public class PreferenceVM:INotifyPropertyChanged
{
private PreferencesVM _preferencesVM;
public PreferenceVM(PreferencesVM preferencesVM)
{
_preferencesVM = preferencesVM;
_preferencesVM.SelectedOptions.CollectionChanged += new NotifyCollectionChangedEventHandler(SelectedOptions_CollectionChanged);
}
void SelectedOptions_CollectionChanged(object sender, NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs e)
{
if (this.PropertyChanged != null)
this.PropertyChanged(this,new PropertyChangedEventArgs("Options"));
}
private OptionVM _selectedOption;
public OptionVM SelectedOption
{
get { return _selectedOption; }
set
{
if (value == _selectedOption)
return;
if (_selectedOption != null)
_preferencesVM.SelectedOptions.Remove(_selectedOption);
_selectedOption = value;
if (_selectedOption != null)
_preferencesVM.SelectedOptions.Add(_selectedOption);
}
}
private ObservableCollection<OptionVM> _options = new ObservableCollection<OptionVM>();
public IEnumerable<OptionVM> Options
{
get { return _preferencesVM.AllOptions.Where(x=>Filter(x)); }
}
private bool Filter(OptionVM optVM)
{
if(optVM==_selectedOption)
return true;
if(_preferencesVM.SelectedOptions.Contains(optVM))
return false;
return true;
}
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
}
OptionVM.cs:
public class OptionVM
{
private string _name;
public string Name
{
get { return _name; }
}
public OptionVM(string name)
{
_name = name;
}
}
MainWindow.xaml.cs:
public partial class MainWindow : Window
{
public MainWindow()
{
InitializeComponent();
this.DataContext = new PreferencesVM();
}
}
MainWindow.xaml:
<Window x:Class="WpfApplication64.MainWindow"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="525">
<Grid>
<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding Path=Preferences}">
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<ComboBox ItemsSource="{Binding Path=Options}" DisplayMemberPath="Name" SelectedItem="{Binding Path=SelectedOption}"></ComboBox>
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>
</Grid>
</Window>
**Note that to reduce lines of code, my provided solution only generates 3 ComboBoxes (not 10).