I am stuck on how to pass data from one control to another. If I have a listbox control and the Contol Item contains a datatemplate which renders out 5 fields ( first name, last name, email, phone and DOB) all of which come from an observable collection. How can I allow the user to select a listbox item and have the valuesbe stored within a new listbox control?
Is this done through the creation of a new collection or is there a more simple way to bind these values to a new control?
thank you,
If it is not too late, I would strongly recommend that you use the MVVM pattern. The problem you are facing is typical for WPF without a decent presentation model and wont be the last one.
Using MVVM you would pass data between controls/views through the ViewModel. In your example you would have a PersonViewModel with an ObservableCollection containing first name, last name, email and DOB. Additionally it would have a property SelectedItem. This property can be bound to in a lot of different controls/views without them having to know each other.
Let's say you have a:
<ListBox Name="DemoList" ItemsSource="{Binding ...}">
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
...
</ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>
And another control, maybe a TextBox:
<TextBox Text="I want to bind this to the Email property" />
You can achieve this pretty easily, with:
<TextBox Text="{Binding ElementName=DemoList, Path=SelectedItem.Email}" />
Note the ElementName property of the Binding. This allows you to bind relative to another control, and in this case you want the SelectedItem of your ListBox. SelectedItem will contain an element of the collection in the ItemsSource (or null if nothing is selected), so you can then bind to its properties.
It gets more complex if you want to support multiple selection, but it doesn't sound like this is a requirement for you.
Related
I'm learning WPF and am really trying to drill down on binding until I can do it like a boss. But I'm having a bit of an issue.
In xaml, I have a ListBox like so:
<ListBox Name="AccountsDisplay"
SelectedValuePath="Username"
IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem="True"
ItemsSource="{Binding Accounts}"
/>
And I have a TextBox that's pulling "Username" from said ListBox.
<TextBox Text="{Binding ElementName=AccountsDisplay, Path=SelectedValue}"/>
Note: Accounts is both an ObservableCollection and all objects added to it are of type Account, which is purely a data class that extends INotifyPropertyChanged, and has properties such as Username, Password, etc.
The TextBox is pulling the Username property properly, and updates any time I change selection in the ListBox (which is populated with pretty lil' Account info entries, as intended), but I cannot then click on the TextBox and attempt to update the Username portion of entries in the ListBox.
My gut tells me I'm going about this TextBox the wrong way, since I won't be able to make other TextBoxes and pull any additional Account properties (thanks to SelectedValuePath already having a value), but I'm too new to WPF & XAML to see where the error is in my ways!
Am I barking up the right tree, or is there a more appropriate way to get a TextBox to synchronize with (and edit) the data in another UI Element?
Consider binding to the property of the actual DataContext of the list item selected.
I do not use SelectedValue because I am not sure of it's purpose.
Because of my ignorance regarding the use of that particular property, I just rely on SelectedItem.
I can then specify the property name that I want to bind to relative to the DataContext of the selected list item.
<TextBox Text="{Binding ElementName=AccountsDisplay, Path=SelectedItem.Username}"/>
In my current scenario (WPF, MVVM), I have a user control which hosts a visio diagram. This user control is located on a view, next to a number of labels and a datagrid element.
The user control contains a DependencyProperty object SelectedNode which value is updated with the information received from the Visio diagram. The labels' content are binded so that they display the information contained in the SelectedNode (e.g. id, name):
<Label Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1" x:Name="lbNodeIdValue" HorizontalAlignment="Left"
Content="{Binding ElementName=visioControlUC, Path=SelectedNode.Id, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged, Mode=OneWay}"/>
Every time I change the selection in the diagram, the label's content changes as expected.
Next to this label, I would like to display a datagrid containing information based on the id displayed in the label. This is where I ran into problems, as I can't seem to be able to get the value of the Content property of the label in the viewmodel class.
I have tried using the MultiBinding property on the Content element of the label, and creating a second binding with Mode=OneWayToSource to set the value of the label's Content to a property I have defined in the viewmodel class.
What would be a proper way to retrieve this value in my viewmodel class?
Thanks,
Adrian
Ideally your Datagrid's ViewModel should get the value of the selected label from the other ViewModel. You should not rely on Views to transfer application data between ViewModels.
It sounds like the SelectedNode value originates from the UserControl, and not the ViewModel, so you'll need to bind the UserControl.SelectedNodeId to a ViewModel somewhere so the ViewModels have access to this data
<local:myUserControl x:Name="visioControlUC"
SelectedNode="{Binding SelectedNodeId}" />
If the value is needed by more than one ViewModel, I would highly recommend some kind of event system, such as MVVM Light's Messenger or Prism's EventAggregator. This would allow your ViewModels to subscribe to something like a SelectedNodeChangedEventMessage, and the ViewModel which actually contains the SelectedNodeId can broadcast that message anytime the value changes. You can find an example of both on my blog post about Communication between ViewModels.
I have a lot of check boxes in my WPF form. I want to get the selected checkbox value alone. In Winforms we can use foreach(checkbox ck in controls), but I cannot use like that in WPF Forms. How can i get the selected checkbox in WPF?
First of all, WPF is not just another replacement for WinForms, So the tricks in Winforms might be little different than WPF. WPF is all about DataBinding, so read about MVVM pattern which will really help you in WPF development.
Now coming to the way to go with MVVM approach fort this, Imagine your ViewModel class contains a collection of bool. Now the DataTemplate has CheckBox.IsChecked property bind to the boolean, So when you change the checkbox the collection will hold the changed booleans appropriately.
public List<bool> MyBoolCollection{get; set;}
<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding MyBoolCollection}" ...>
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<CheckBox IsChecked="{Binding}"/>
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
Can you data bind the IsChecked property for each CheckBox? Bind it to a member variable of the container class. At least this way you can iterate over the member variables to determine if any are checked.
I have question on the checkbox.
First of all,
I have a usercontrol which has a list box like this and this user control will be switched by 2 button and then the data source is changed and then the the displayed officer status will be changed:
When I check the checkbox, Officers[0].IsOnDuty will be changed to true.
The problem is:
When I click another button and switch to another data source, this checked check box is still checked but the Officers[0].IsOnDuty for this data source is false.
How to solve this?
The data context of the list box item is an item for your officers collection, not the collection itself. And using a one way binding is incorrect, as the data source (the officer) will not be updated. So change the DataTemplate to:
<CheckBox IsChecked="{Binding Path=IsOnDuty, Mode=TwoWay}" />
*Here is the list box xaml:
<ListBox ItemsSource="{Binding OfficersCollection}">
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<CheckBox IsChecked="{Binding Path=Officers[0].IsOnDuty, Mode=OneWay}" />
*
The problem with your approach is that once you change the ItemsSource (by switching to the next page) your chekcbox is still bound to the item of the first collection. I think this happens because you explicitly use an indexer for the binding Path=Officers[0].IsOnDuty
Your samplelist box xaml does not really make sense. the ItemsSoruce is a OfficerCollection and your ItemTemplate binds to a collection of Officers too. Depending on what you are trying to accomplish you should do one of the following:
If your are just interested in the first officer (as your sample suggest), add a DependencyProperty FirstOfficer (or a INotifyPropertyChanged) property to your collection and bind to it: IsChecked="{Binding Path=Officers.FirstOfficer, Mode=OneWay}"
If you however are interested in all Officers and want checkboxes for all of them you should create a DataTemplate for the Officer type and use this as the ItemTemplate.
Generally you can stay out of a lot of trouble if you stick with MVVM and really tailor your ViewModel objects very close to what the View needs so you can bind your View to the ViewModel in the simplest possible way. Think of the ViewModel as the View you want to build but without a visual representation.
I will try and explain this as concise as possible. I have 2 objects, the first which we will call object A that has an Id property and the second we will call object B, which has a ParentId property. The obvious relationship is that object B's ParentId is set to an object A's Id property. I am using the MVVM pattern, so on the viewmodel I have 2 ObservableCollections, one containing objects A the other objects B. On construction of the viewmodel, I create and fill the ObservableCollection<'A'> named ListItems. My xaml is simple,
<StackPanel>
<ListBox IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem="True" ItemsSource="{Binding ListItems}">
</ListBox>
<ComboBox SelectedValuePath="ParentId" SelectedValue="{Binding Path=ListItems/Id, Mode=OneWay}" ItemsSource="{Binding ComboItems}">
</ComboBox>
<Button Click="Button_Click" Content="Push Me"/>
</StackPanel>
As you can see the combobox's SelectedValue is bound to the ListItems current item's Id property. So essentially the listbox and combobox are in a master details.
If you press the button, it will fill the ObservableCollection<'B'> name ComboItems, which in turn populates the combobox. Now here is where the oddity begins. When I start the program, if the only thing I do is press the button, and then afterwords select an item in the listbox, the combobox will properly select an item due to the SelectedValue binding. But if I start the program and first select an item in the listbox and then press the button, the current combobox item will not change with the current listbox item. The binding appears to be forever broken. Does anyone know why this happens?
Ps. If I set the ItemsSource on the combobox before I set the SelectedValue/SelectedValuePath, the master/detail binding will never work. I know there is order to xaml, but that seems a little fragile. So if anyone has input on that also, I am all ears.
Thanks, Nate
EDIT -
When binding SelectedValue, it is very fragile. If the binding is working, i.e. have not selected anything in the listbox and then filled the combobox, if you choose an item in the combobox, the binding will break. After much time wasted with this, I chose to bind SelectedItem. This binding does not break in any of the conditions I have previously specified. I would however take any answers as to why SelectedValue binding is so ridiculous. Thanks again to all that have answered or will answer.
Yeah this is a problem we stumble upon quite a lot.
The problem is that after the ItemsSource property gets a new value, the SelectedValue binding will be cleared. Sucks, and until today we have not found a proper solution.
Here are a few workarounds:
Reset the SelectedValue binding in code, as soon as the new ItemsSource has been set. You can do this in a converter, or somewhere you'll know which will replace the ItemsSource binding (like the DataContextChanged event).
Instead of using the Binding on ItemsSource, try using a CollectionViewSource and a Filter. Put all your items in the CollectionViewSource object and filter the items when your combobox changes value.
Manually get your item the old fashion way when your listbox throws a SelectionChanged event.
Mind you, all solutions are not the prettiest in the book. I would go for option 2, its the cleanest IMO ;)
Hope this helps!