I have a control bound to an Object and all is well but I want to turn it into a control template bound to different objects of a similar type. I would like to do this exclusively in xaml, if possible. Any good tutorials that outline the steps?
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Source={StaticResource BorderControl}, Path=ControlName}"/>
EDIT: With a little more experience, it turns out what I need is the ability to Set the Binding source based on a property of the control. i.e.
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Source={StaticResource {TemplateBinding Tag}}, Path=ControlName}"/>
The control exists within a ControlTemplate but works correctly if I bind it directly to the data -- if that makes a difference. I don't know if this is possible or if it's the correct approach. Any thoughts welcome!
EDIT:
This doesn't work either.
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Source={TemplateBinding Tag}, Path=ControlName}"/>
I think you want ContentPresenter here (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.controls.contentpresenter.aspx) - think of it as one line of an ItemsControl, it's got a content and a reference to a template that will represent that content.
Related
It's a good thing I don't mind feeling stupid.
I'm trying to bind to an ObservableCollection on my view model. The data hierarchy looks like: Parent -contains list of- Child objects. Nothing complicated.
At the outermost grid of my Xaml tree I establish a link to the view model with:
<Grid DataContext="{StaticResource src}">
Yes, src does reference the view model and the two dozen bindings before the problem textbox work fine. There is not another DataContext in my Xaml tree. Now I come to a simple textbox. I want to bind Textbox text to a child.property.
This works:
<TextBlock
DataContext="{Binding Parent}"
Text="{Binding Path=Child.Property}"
Style="{StaticResource headerMajor}"
/>
This doesn't work:
<TextBlock
Text="{Binding Source=Parent,Path=Child.Property}"
Style="{StaticResource headerMajor}"
/>
I thought they were two ways of saying the same thing. Ordinarily I wonder for a moment and then keep on coding. However, some advice I've read mentioned that DataContext attributes buried in Xaml controls can lead to hard to find bugs.
Please explain why one works and the other does not. This will help my grasp on the whole binding topic.
Jim
Source is a property which holds an object used as source for the binding, it does not resolve to a property. Hence your binding is looking for the property path Child.Property on the string "Parent", see the problem?
I want to set the background color separately for each item in a WPF ListBox. e.g. If I am adding Widgets to the ListBox, I might set the background color for each one based on the type of widget. This must be done in code (not XAML) as I only know what the items are at run time.
I know how to use ItemContainerStyle to set the style for all items, but how do you do it separately for each item?
Yes you do set ItemContainerStyle, using a StyleSelector.
This example at MSDN is exactly what you are looking for.
There are lots of ways to do this.
One is to use a StyleSelector, as loxxy suggests. This is pretty low on my list, because that kind of code is harder to read (well, find) and test than I'd like.
Another is to use a DataTrigger in the style. This is simple, if (and only if) the items all implement a common property that can be used in the trigger. You might be well served by implementing a wrapper class that exposes this common property, and contains the logic that figures out what value to assign to the property based on the object it's wrapping. (Whether or not this is easier than a StyleSelector is certainly arguable.)
If the items are really and truly heterogeneous, you can accomplish the result by using data templates, e.g.:
<ListBox.Resources>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:Foo}">
<TextBlock Text="{Binding FooText}" Background="Red"/>
</DataTemplate>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:Bar}">
<TextBlock Text="{Binding BarText}" Background="Yellow"/>
</DataTemplate>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:Baz}">
<TextBlock Text="{Binding BazText}" Background="PapayaWhip"/>
</DataTemplate>
</ListBox.Resources>
etc. This would generally be my first choice, but your question doesn't really explain enough about the circumstances to know if it's the right way to go or not.
first of all I would like to thank you for the many good posts that i read in this forum. Unluckily I could not find anything of help for my current problem (either here or anywhere else).
What I'm trying to do sounds quite simple, but I have no clue how to get it to work ... perhaps I'm still to new to wpf or I don't thing wpfy enough :)
I'm designing a front end for a part in an automated manufacturing:
I have a quantity of places where pallets can be put (but it can be empty as well).
Each pallet has up to 3 places where parts can be mounted
Everything is created dynamically of a database and is reacting to changes.
The position of the parts on the pallet comes from the database as well and should be visualized
What I would like to have is:
An overview over the pallet-places with a preview of the pallet
When I select a place I want to see a detail view of the place
When I click on a part on the pallet of the detailed pallet I want to see details to the part
The first two points are quite simple and work nicely:
I have got a DataTemplate for every component (part, pallet, pallet-place). Actually those are UserControls that are imported as Datatemplates
the overview is a ListBox with the places as DataContext
for the detail-place-view I use the UserControl and bound it to the SelectedItem of the Listbox
I tried to bind the Text of a Textblock to the ID of the selected Part ... and fail.
Probably I could use some global variables in the code behind - but that sound very ugly.
Can anybody help?
I have got a solution ... it is not nice but works.
I created an event in the pallet, that triggers, when the selected part-place changes
I handle the event in the pallet-place and create a new one
And finally I handle it in the overview and change the detailview accordingly
Most likely there are much nicer solutions, but it will suffice.
Perhaps try an ElementName binding?
<TextBlock Text="{Binding ElementName=Name_of_your_Listbox, Path=SelectedItem.ID" />
Can you post a bit more code of your TextBlock and your Binding?
Context is important, if i use a ContentControl and bind its content to the SelectedItem like this:
<ContentControl Content="{Binding SelectedItem, ElementName=mylistbox}">
I can bind to the ID of the selected item in the DataTemplate like this:
<ContentControl.ContentTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding ID}" />
</DataTemplate>
</ContentControl.ContentTemplate>
That is because setting the Content of the ContentControl automatically sets the DataContext as well, and this binding is relative to the DataContext since no source (ElementName, RelativeSource, Source) has been specified.
I do not know how your UserControl handles the context, if the DataContext is not affected such bindings will not work. You would need to bind directly then:
<uc:MyDetailsView Data="{Binding SelectedItem, ElementName=mylistbox}">
<!-- ... -->
<TextBlock Text="{Binding SelectedItem.ID, ElementName=mylistbox}" />
This of course defeats the purpose of having the binding on the UserControl itself in the first place. But unless you post some relevant code it's quite hard to tell what is wrong.
Also check the Output window in VisualStudio, binding errors will show up there and might provide valuable information as to what went wrong.
When I searched the internet to find out how to set the itemtemplate for a listbox, I found an example where they used a Style Setter in the window.resources to do this. So, I have a couple of options, I can either create a datatemplate in my window.resources, or, create a Style Setter. Would it be overkill to set the style instead of the datatemplate? Which method should I use?
Thank You.
You can't say one or the other is better, it depends. Implicit DataTemplates are a nice way to globally (even if just for part of the visual tree) how a Type should look. While using ItemTemplate allows you to indicate how it should look in a given ItemsControl (i.e. ListBox, ComboBox, etc.).
You can even use a combination of both of them, which allows you have a "default" look, but customize it per control or control type.
Even with ItemTemplate, you can set it globally for say all ListBoxes, or for just one ListBox instance. So again, sometimes one method is better, sometimes not. It depends on what you are trying to do.
Styles in general are used to apply the same values to different instances of the same type. If this is not the case there is no need to create a style at all.
I prefer to make a <DataTemplate> for the type of item and then let WPF figure it out.
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:Task}">
<StackPanel>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=TaskName}" />
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Description}"/>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Priority}"/>
</StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>
<List ItemSource="{Binding MyListOfTaskItems"/>
Any help on this really appreciated. In summary I'm trying to databind to properties of a custom class instantiated in xaml that then forms the content of a templated listboxitem (phew!).
I have a simple c# class called MenuItem. It has two properties:
- Heading
- Icon
Concentrating on just one of those menu items (i.e. to provide a simple example of where I am stuck) If I do this (with the values hard coded) it works fine:
<ListBox>
<ListBoxItem ContentTemplate="{StaticResource MenuItemTemplate}">
<myclasses:MenuItem Heading="News" IconImage="News.png"/>
</ListBoxItem>
</Listbox>
Where MenuItemTemplate is an appropriate DataTemplate in the resources section binding each property) containing lines such as:
<TextBlock x:Name="tbHeading" Text="{Binding Heading}">
Wheareas when I try to use binding to set the Heading property it falls over (AG_E_PARSER_BAD_PROPERTY_VALUE error)- e.g.:
<ListBox>
<ListBoxItem ContentTemplate="{StaticResource MenuItemTemplate}">
<myclasses:MenuItem Heading="{Binding NewsHeading, Mode=OneWay}" Icon="News.png"/>
</ListBoxItem>
<Listbox>
I've wondered if it is because I'm doing some kind of double binding (i.e. the template is binding to a value on the MenuItem class that needs to be bound) and that's not possible? I've tried having the properties declared as dependency properties but no difference (although I only learned about those today so I may be missing something).
I know I could set the menuitem objects up in the view model, and bind from there, but I would like to understand why the above doesn't work (as for my purposes there are advantages in constructing the menu items in the xaml).
Thank you!!!!
Ian
thanks for sticking with this. I agree the listbox might not be needed - but even if I reduce it to just one item in a contentcontrol:
<ContentControl ContentTemplate="{StaticResource MenuItemTemplate}">
<myclasses:MenuItem Heading="{Binding NewsHeading, Mode=OneWay}" IconImage="News.png"/>
</ContentControl>
I still have the same problem - which is that I can get databinding to work within the content of a contentcontrol (prior to it being presented by the datatemplate referred to in ContentTemplate) using purely xaml.
I.e. the above bit of xaml doesn't work - it throws an error on the bit that binds the NewsHeading:
Heading="{Binding NewsHeading, Mode=OneWay}
So I am trying to understand whether what I'm doing is impossible, or whether it is but I'm doing it wrong.
Thanks.
Assuming that you have multiple MenuItem classes (because you're putting them in a listbox and ti wouldn't make sense to do that if you just had one). You need to bind the collection to the ItemsSource property of the ListBox.
Somehting like this:
<ListBox ItemsSource="{Binding MyMenuItems}">
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Heading}"/>
</DataTemplate>
</ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>
Note that the above assumes you've set the DataContext on the page to an object with a property called MyMenuItems which is a collection of your MenuItem objects.
To see a full example of this, look at the default code created when you create a new "Windows Phone Databound Application".
Edit:
Based on your comments, it seems that a ListBox is not the most appropriate solution to your needs. A ListBox is designed/intended to take a collection of items and display them in a list.
If you have a number of different objects which you know about at design time and simply wish to have them one on top of another (giving the appearance of a list) you could simply put them inside a ScrollViewer and/or a StackPanel (or other appropriate container). Plus, you would still be able to databind if you did it this way.