I need to do some kind of data validation in a WPF application I am developing
As far as I know, when you add ValidatesOnDataErrors=True to the Binding, everytime the Binding is resolved (it can be every time teh value changes, it can be when focus is lost), Binding engine checks the binding source, through IDataErrorInfo, access the interface, finds out if there is some error or not.
It sounds good, with only one caveat. In order for data to be validated, it needs to be rendered. If you happen to have an ObservableCollection of that entity bound to a ListBox with VirtualizingStackPanel.IsVirtualizing=True, only rendered items are validated. Since most items are outside viewport, they are not rendered.
How can I force every item to be validated? Removing UI virtualization is not an option.
I have found one way to do so. It's ugly. But it works. Assuming the UI virtualized list is myList
for (Int32 i = 0; i < myList.Items.Count; i++)
{
myList.ScrollIntoView(myList.Items[i]);
}
UpdateLayout();
That way, I get a list of all items. I scroll the list to every item in that list. And I update layout, because ScrollIntoView is asynchronous, I think. After that, every item has been rendered, every binding has been executed and every validation has been evaluated.
Are there better ways out there?
Related
I'm developing a WPF/MVVM application and I have a listbox binding to data in a ViewModel. At various points I need the view model to cause the listbox to scroll to a given element.
How can I do this without creating a custom control and while still maintaining good separation of concerns?
I've currently got it working by creating a custom behavior class in the view layer with a dependency property VisibleIndex which the XAML code then binds to an integer in the view model:
<ListBox x:Name="myListBox"
local:ListBoxVisibilityBehavior.VisibleIndex="{Binding VisibleIndex}">
When the integer is set it triggers the dependency properties update handler which tells the listbox to scroll to the associated index.
This seems a bit hacky though because the dependency property value is never changed by the listbox and the update handler only gets called when the value changes, so the only way to ensure that the relevent item is visible is to do something like this:
// view-model code
this.VisibleIndex = -1;
this.VisibleIndex = 10;
The only reason I'm using a behaviour class at the moment is for binding my custom dependency property, is there a way to do something like this with events instead?
Attached properties are somewhat required in your case - as at some point, 'somewhere' you need to call the following method...
ListBox.ScrollIntoView(item)
or
ListBoxItem.BringIntoView();
And for that you need some sort of code behind - and attached properties/behaviors are a nice way of packaging that, w/o impacting your MVVM.
Having said that - if you just need to have your 'selected item' scrolled into view at all times (which is the case most of the time). Then you could use a different attached-property based solution (that again):
mvvm how to make a list view auto scroll to a new Item in a list view
All you have to do then is to set or bind to SelectedItem.
That's a bit 'nicer' if you wish - but the mechanism is the same.
For anyone else interested in the answer to this one of the MS engineers on the WPF forum cleared it up for me. Instead of binding to an event directly you bind to a wrapper object that encapsulates that event. The behaviour can then grab the reference to the wrapper from its DP and do whatever it wants with it i.e. subscribe to the event, trigger it etc.
Basically, I have a listview inside my form. In order to make the process of selecting the different items in the listview quicker, i have to add a "select all items" checkbox.
For Each lvItem As ListViewItem In Me.lvwDatos.Items
lvItem .Checked = True
Next
That's about it, very simple. Once i click on the select all checkbox, i can see clearly how all the elements go into checked state. However, on the next step, when i want to loop through the selected items in my code and do whatever tasks should be applied to them, i'm finding that ALL elements are unchecked. What's making them loose their state?
Ok, nevermind, i found the problem...that's how it is supposed to be, there's no problem in the listview, it's just the chain of events that were taking place that broke it all...legazy code, as usual...
This is why I have designed Better ListView component which have this behavior fixed (and many other quirks of .NET ListView).
There is also a free Better ListView Express, if you are interested.
The checked item collection is maintained separately and you always get its actual state.
I appologize for the novel but I wanted to explain as much as I have done thus far.
Within my current project I have an application that consumes a service that provides a collection as a <List>. Due to how I am using this data in the application I have had to convert this data to an observable collection. This was done so that as the data was selected and moved about the application UI updates would be refreshed using INotifyPropertyChanged and INotifyCollectionChanged.
Where I am having a challenge now is I have a listbox that is bound to the observable collection within the listbox I have a datatemplate that renders out the items of the collection. This data template contains a button which needs to allow the user to click the button for each item to remove them from the collection.
The use case for this is a listbox that stores selected name as chosen from a gridview. Once the user has selected names from the gridview they are stored ( within the observable collection as a queue) and rendered out in the UI in a listbox control which shows all selected names. I need to provide the user with the ability to remove these names in any order selected.
From what I have been reading there is no means to enumerate / index an observable collection. For situations such as this you should use List or an Array. However in order for the items to refresh in the list view they need to be in an Observable Collection.
From what I have read it appears that when the event is triggered I need to convert the observable collection to an Array and then evaluate the array to determine the index and then remove the record accordingly?
I think I may be off base on this as it seems like I am over engineering this problem? The above scenario does not seem correct is because I fell as if I am doing a lot of converting to and from the collections to just remove a record?
Does anyone know of an efficient means to remove records from a collection ( in any order selected) when the collection is rendered out as an items control within a listbox?
I’ve been successful in removing the last record added to the collection using RemoveAt() however I have not had any success in randomly removing records.
Afterthought: Part of this issue could be related to the fact that I have a button inserted within the datatemplate (control item) and as a result the item is not actually being selected before the event is fired on the button event?
Sorry for the rambling on this but I have had my head in this for hours and made minor progress. Any tips or ideas would be appreciated!
ObservableCollection<T> inherits from Collection<T> which implements IList<T>, so you can certainly index and enumerate it. It has a Remove method that takes the object to remove and removes the first occurrence in the collection and a RemoveAt method that takes an index and removes the item at that index.
Based on your afterthought, it sounds like you have a WPF ListBox with an ItemTemplate that creates a Button. ListBox will set the DataContext of each instantiated template to the item in the list being bound to, so you can get a reference to the item that created a Button from the DataContext property on the Button or by using a Binding.
I am creating a custom DataGrid by deriving the traditional tookit based WPF DataGrid. I want a functionality in the grid to load items one by one asynchronously, wherein as soon as ItemsSource is changed i.e. a new collection is Set to the ItemsSource property or the bound collection is Changed dues to items that rae added, moved or removed (wherein the notifications comes to the data grid when the underlying source implements INotifyCollectionChanged such as ObservableCollection).
This is because even with virtualising stackpanel underneath the datagrid takes time to load (2-3 seconds delay) to load the data rows when it has several columns and some are template based. With above behavior that delay would "appear" to have reduced giving datagrid a feel that it has the data and is responsive enough to load it.
How can I achieve it?
Thx
Vinit.
Sounds like you are looking for data virtualization', which typically means creating your own custom type that resembles IList, and doing a lot of work to hydrate objects after-the-fact.
You will end up having your data that the grid is displaying look something like this:
Index 0: new MyDataObject(0);
Index 1: new MyDataObject(1);
And MyDataObject implements INotifyPropertyChanged.
In the constructor, you do the logic necessary to time, schedule, or interpret when the real results should be read. Until then, you return rather empty data... null and string.Empty from your properties.
Then, once the data becomes available (ideally in a background thread, read from wherever - your own local data, or a database or web service), then you can update the real underlying property values and fire the property change notifications so that the UI gets properly loaded then.
It's a little too complex to just jump into, so some searching will help. Hope this gets you started.
I populate a ListBox control with my own objects redefining ToString(). The objects are displayed correctly when I just add those objects using listBox1.Add(myObject). However, if I later change something in this object, no changes are displayed in the listbox. Debugging reveals that an object inside listBox1.Items is indeed changed, but it is not reflected on a screen.
Interestingly enough, if I reassign a particular listbox item to itself (sounds a bit weird, doesn't it?), like:
listBox1.Items[0] = listBox1.Items[0]
this line will display a correct value on screen.
What is going on here? Does it have anything to do with threading?
Since you're using ToString of the object to provide the text of the list box item, the ListBox has no idea that the value has changed. What you should do instead is have the object implement INotifyPropertyChanged then expose a public property such as Name or Text and return what you normally would have returned from ToString().
Then set the DisplayMember of the ListBox to the name of the new property.
Make sure you are correctly raising the PropertyChanged event in the object and the ListBox should be able to automatically pick up the changes.
Edit: Adrian's edit reminded me that I do believe you'll need to use a BindingList as your data source in order for the property change notifications to be picked up. A quick scan in Reflector looks like ListBox on its own will not pick up the property changes mentioned above. But INotifyPropertyChanged + BindingList should.
The ToString() value of each item is cached when the listbox is first displayed. If an item in the listbox's Items collection then changes, the listbox does not notice and still uses the cached ToString() values for display. To force the listbox to update, either call RefreshItems() to refresh all items, or call RefreshItem(int) specifying the index of the item to refresh.
From the MSDN docs for RefreshItems():
Refreshes all ListBox items and retrieves new strings for them.
EDIT: It turns out that both of these methods are protected, so cannot be called externally. In trying to find a solution, I came across this SO question that this question is basically a duplicate of.
Have you tried calling Refresh() on the ListBox? I think the problem is that the ListBox does not know your object changed. The reason reassigning the the item works is because the ListBox will repaint itself when the collection changes.
you could invalidate the control, forcing a re-paint... perhaps..