Converting a ComboBox to an AutoCompleteBox using the WPF Toolkit - c#

I'm having a bit of trouble to achieve the conversion of a "complex" ComboBox to an equally complex AutoCompleteBox. My goal is to be able to select and set a ShoppingCart's Item to be like one of the Items of a list. Here's the three steps to take to reproduce my situation (I'm using Stylet and its SetAndNotify() INPC method):
Create two objects, one having only a Name property and the other one having only the other object as a property
public class ItemModel : PropertyChangedBase
{
private string _name;
public string Name
{
get => _name;
set => SetAndNotify(ref _name, value);
}
}
public class ShoppingCartModel : PropertyChangedBase
{
public ItemModel Item { get; set; }
}
initialize and Populate both the ItemsList and the Shoppingcart in the DataContext (since we're using MVVM, it's the ViewModel)
public ShoppingCartModel ShoppingCart { get; set; }
public ObservableCollection<ItemModel> ItemsList { get; set; }
public ShellViewModel()
{
ItemsList = new ObservableCollection<ItemModel>()
{
new ItemModel { Name = "T-shirt"},
new ItemModel { Name = "Jean"},
new ItemModel { Name = "Boots"},
new ItemModel { Name = "Hat"},
new ItemModel { Name = "Jacket"},
};
ShoppingCart = new ShoppingCartModel() { Item = new ItemModel() };
}
Create the AutoCompleteBox, ComboBox, and a small TextBlock inside the View to test it all out:
<Window [...] xmlns:toolkit="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=DotNetProjects.Input.Toolkit">
<!-- Required Template to show the names of the Items in the ItemsList -->
<Window.Resources>
<DataTemplate x:Key="AutoCompleteBoxItemTemplate">
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Background="Transparent">
<Label Content="{Binding Name}"/>
</StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>
</Window.Resources>
<StackPanel>
<!-- AutoCompleteBox: can see the items list but selecting doesn't change ShoppingCart.Item.Name -->
<Label Content="AutoCompleteBox with ShoppingCart.Item.Name as SelectedItem:"/>
<toolkit:AutoCompleteBox ItemsSource="{Binding ItemsList}"
ValueMemberPath="Name"
SelectedItem="{Binding Path=ShoppingCart.Item.Name}"
ItemTemplate="{StaticResource AutoCompleteBoxItemTemplate}"/>
<!-- ComboBox: can see the items list and selecting changes ShoppingCart.Item.Name value -->
<Label Content="ComboBox with ShoppingCart.Item.Name as SelectedValue:"/>
<ComboBox ItemsSource="{Binding ItemsList}"
DisplayMemberPath="Name"
SelectedValue="{Binding Path=ShoppingCart.Item.Name}"
SelectedValuePath="Name"
SelectedIndex="{Binding Path=ShoppingCart.Item}" />
<!-- TextBox: Typing "Jean" or "Jacket" updates the ComboBox, but not the AutoCompleteBox -->
<Label Content="Value of ShoppingCart.Item.Name:"/>
<TextBox Text="{Binding Path=ShoppingCart.Item.Name}"/>
</StackPanel>
</window>
Changing the Binding Mode of the AutoCompleteBox's SelectedItem to TwoWay makes it print "[ProjectName].ItemModel" which means (I guess?) it's getting ItemModels and not strings, but I can't seem to make it work. Any help will be appreciated, thanks and feel free to edit my post if it's possible to make it smaller.

After a lot of attempts, I finally found the culprits :
INPC not implemented in ShoppingCartModel.Item despite the PropertyChangedBase inheritance (either implementing INPC or remove the PropertyChangedBase inheritance work)
public class ShoppingCartModel : PropertyChangedBase
{
private ItemModel _item;
public ItemModel Item
{
get => _item;
set => SetAndNotify(ref _item, value);
}
}
AutoCompleteBox's SelectedItem must be of the same type of ItemsSource, and have a TwoWay Mode Binding
<toolkit:AutoCompleteBox ItemsSource="{Binding ItemsList}"
ValueMemberPath="Name"
SelectedItem="{Binding Path=ShoppingCart.Item, Mode=TwoWay}"
ItemTemplate="{StaticResource AutoCompleteBoxItemTemplate}"/>
And finally... the most mysterious one is the ComboBox! Simply by being there it messes with the AutoCompleteBox and I have no idea why, just commenting the whole ComboBox makes it all work. If you know why the ComboBox breaks the AutoCompleteBox's binding feel free to help.
There's another problem though, when using an AutoCompleteBox inside a ListView, but it's better to create a separate question for that issue here

Related

Is it possible to bind the MenuItem.IsEnabled property to a different Context?

I have a ListView bound to a collection of objects (called Users, in this case), and the template includes a ContextActions menu. One of the menu items needs to be enabled or disabled depending on a condition having nothing directly to do with the items in the view (whether or not there's a Bluetooth connection to a certain kind of peripheral). What I'm doing right now is iterating the Cells in the TemplatedItems property and setting IsEnabled on each.
Here's the XAML for the ListView, stripped down to the parts that matter for my question:
<ListView ItemsSource="{Binding .}" ItemTapped="item_Tap">
<ListView.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<TextCell Text="{Binding Label}">
<TextCell.ContextActions>
<MenuItem
Text="Copy to other device"
ClassId="copyMenuItem"
Clicked="copyMenuItem_Click" />
</TextCell.ContextActions>
</TextCell>
</DataTemplate>
</ListView.ItemTemplate>
</ListView>
Here's how I'm setting the property values now:
foreach (Cell cell in usersListView.TemplatedItems)
{
foreach (MenuItem item in cell.ContextActions)
{
if ("copyMenuItem" == item.ClassId)
{
item.IsEnabled = isBluetoothConnected;
}
}
}
That works, but i don't like it. It's obviously out of line with the whole idea of data-bound views. I'd much rather have a boolean value that I can bind to the IsEnabled property, but it doesn't make sense from an object design point of view to add that to the User object; it has nothing to do with what that class is about (representing login accounts). I thought of wrapping User in some local class that exists just to tape this boolean property onto it, but that feels strange also since the value will always be the same for every item in the collection. Is there some other way to bind the MenuItem.IsEnabled property?
Use relative binding
Get ready in your view model class, inherit INotifyPropertyChanged or your BaseViewModel.
public class YourViewModel : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
private string isBluetoothConnected;
public string IsBluetoothConnected
{
get => isBluetoothConnected;
set => SetProperty(ref isBluetoothConnected, value);
}
public ObservableCollection<User> Users { get; private set; }
}
Add a name to ListView for reference, and apply relative binding in MenuItem.
<ListView
x:Name="UserListView"
ItemsSource="{Binding Users}"
ItemTapped="item_Tap">
<ListView.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<TextCell Text="{Binding Label}">
<TextCell.ContextActions>
<MenuItem
IsEnabled="{Binding Path=BindingContext.IsBluetoothConnected, Source={x:Reference UserListView}}"
Text="Copy to other device"
ClassId="copyMenuItem"
Clicked="copyMenuItem_Click" />
</TextCell.ContextActions>
</TextCell>
</DataTemplate>
</ListView.ItemTemplate>
</ListView>
It turns out that this case of BindableProperty is, in fact, not bindable: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/xamarin-forms/user-interface/menuitem#enable-or-disable-a-menuitem-at-runtime
One must add a Command property to the MenuItem and assign a BindingContext to that, and set its executability. Here's the latest version of my code, which does work:
<MenuItem
Text="Copy to other device"
Clicked="copyMenuItem_Click"
BindingContext="{x:Reference usersListView}"
Command="{Binding BindingContext.CopyCommand}" />
public class UsersViewModel
{
public Command CopyCommand { get; set; }
public bool IsBluetoothConnected
{
get { return isBluetoothConnected; }
set
{
isBluetoothConnected = value;
if (CopyCommand.CanExecute(null) != value)
{
CopyCommand.ChangeCanExecute();
}
}
}
public ObservableCollection<User> Users { get; private set; }
private bool isBluetoothConnected;
public async System.Threading.Tasks.Task<int> Populate( )
{
CopyCommand = new Command(( ) => { return; }, ( ) => IsBluetoothConnected); // execute parameter is a no-op since I really just want the canExecute parameter
IList<User> users = await App.DB.GetUsersAsync();
Users = new ObservableCollection<User>(users.OrderBy(user => user.Username));
return Users.Count;
}
}
I'm still not entirely happy with this; it contaminates the view model with the concerns of a specific view. I'm going to see if I can separate the Command from the view model. But it does accomplish my primary goal, bringing this UI implementation into the data binding paradigm.

How to get specific item listbox C# MVVM WPF

Hi i try to get specific item from a listbox. I try to bind but i get crash. Using Prism framework how can i bind to get specific item from listbox, what template i need to make. This is test code:
<ListBox SelectedItem="{Binding SelectIndex}" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="297" Margin="57,41,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="681">
<ListBoxItem>
<TextBlock Text="Test123"/>
</ListBoxItem>
<ListBoxItem>
<TextBlock Text="Test123"/>
</ListBoxItem>
</ListBox>
C# code:
public int SelectIndex
{
get
{
return 1;
}
}
How can i get if i want specific item from this list? What variable type need to make for binding listbox to select items?
It's crashing because you are binding SelectedItem (of type object) to your SelectIndex property (int property) in your view model (VM). ListBox like many WPF controls have distinct SelectedIndex and SelectedItem properties for binding.
If you want to bind to an int property in order to get the index you should be binding the ListBox's SelectedIndex property instead.
Change:
<ListBox SelectedItem="{Binding SelectIndex}" ...
...to:
<ListBox SelectedIndex="{Binding SelectIndex}" ...
Your VM remains as:
public int SelectIndex { get { return 1; } }
Though to be more useful and allow users to choose different items it should be:
public int SelectIndex { get; set; } // TODO: add support for INotifyPropertyChanged
Optionally you can add:
<ListBox SelectedIndex="{Binding SelectIndex}"
SelectedItem="{Binding SelectedItem}" ...
ViewModel:
public int SelectIndex { get; set; } // TODO: add support for INotifyPropertyChanged
// replace object with your type
public object SelectedItem { get; set; } // TODO: add support for INotifyPropertyChanged

How do I bind the data of a custom UserControl

So I just setup a project and added a custom UserControl that looks like this.
<Grid>
<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding UserViewModel.Users}">
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Grid>
<controls:UserCard/>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Name}"/>
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>
</Grid>
As you can see I tried binding the Text property buti it doesn't bind.
Now there could be a lot of reasons to why it's behaving like this so I will try to narrow it down.
I've created a BaseViewModel that will hold my ViewModels and it looks like this.
public class BaseViewModel : ObservableObject
{
public UserViewModel UserViewModel { get; set; } = new UserViewModel();
}
And then I've setup my ViewModel like this
public class UserViewModel : ObservableObject
{
public ObservableCollection<User> Users { get; set; } = new ObservableCollection<User>();
public UserViewModel()
{
Users.Add(new User{Name = "Riley"});
Users.Add(new User{Name = "Riley1"});
}
}
Simple, now I do have a ObservableObject that looks like this and deals with the INPC
public class ObservableObject : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
[NotifyPropertyChangedInvocator]
protected virtual void OnPropertyChanged([CallerMemberName] string propertyName = null)
{
PropertyChanged?.Invoke(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
}
}
And in my MainView.xaml
I've set the DataContext like so
public partial class MainWindow : Window
{
public MainWindow()
{
InitializeComponent();
this.DataContext = new BaseViewModel();
}
}
It's the exact same for the UserControl
And this is where I actually add the UserControl so it displays in the MainWindow
<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding UserViewModel.Users}">
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Grid>
<controls:UserCard/>
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>
Now the issue is that it doesn't bind the Data, I want to display the Name property from the Model but it's not displaying it and I am not sure why, if I try to bind it to a TextBlock property in the MainView directly it works fine.
I am unsure to why it's behaving like this and I would like to understand why.
Do I need to make use of DependencyProperties? Or is it just a case of me creating a new instance of the BaseViewModel? Where did I go wrong?
Your MainViewWindow contains an ItemsControl with the binding ItemsSource="{Binding UserViewModel.Users}", with each item being displayed with a <controls:UserCard/>. But your user control is then trying to bind to the list again with "{Binding UserViewModel.Users}". Why are you trying to display a list inside another list?
I suspect the problem here is that you think your custom UserControl's DataContext is still pointing to the BaseViewModel, like its parent. It isn't. The DataContext of each item in an ItemsControl points to it's own associated element in the list, i.e. an instance of type User.
UPDATED: Let's say you have a main view model with a list of child view models, like this:
public class MainViewModel : ViewModelBase
{
public MyChildViewModel[] MyItems { get; } =
{
new MyChildViewModel{MyCustomText = "Tom" },
new MyChildViewModel{MyCustomText = "Dick" },
new MyChildViewModel{MyCustomText = "Harry" }
};
}
public class MyChildViewModel
{
public string MyCustomText { get; set; }
}
And let's say you set your MainWindow's DataContext to an instance of MainViewModel and add a ListView:
<ListView ItemsSource="{Binding MyItems}" />
If you do this you'll see the following:
What's happening here is that the ListView is creating a container (of type ContentPresenter) for each of the three elements in the list, and setting each one's DataContext to point to its own instance of MyChildViewModel. By default ContentPresenter just calls 'ToString()' on its DataContext, so you're just seeing the name of the class it's pointing to. If you add a ToString() operator to your MyChildViewModel like this:
public override string ToString()
{
return $"MyChildViewModel: {this.MyCustomText}";
}
... then you'll see that displayed instead:
You can also override the ListViewItem's template entirely, and since it already points to its associated instance of MyChildViewModel you can just bind directly to its properties:
<ListView ItemsSource="{Binding MyItems}">
<ListView.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<!-- One of these gets created for each element in the list -->
<Border BorderBrush="Black" BorderThickness="1" Background="CornflowerBlue" CornerRadius="5" Padding="5">
<TextBlock Text="{Binding MyCustomText}" Foreground="Yellow" />
</Border>
</DataTemplate>
</ListView.ItemTemplate>
</ListView>
Which will change the display to this:
Make sense?

Binding a Listbox to a ObservableCollection

So I am trying to bind the following ViewModel:
public class ViewModel : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
private ObservableCollection<ListBoxItem> _PlacesOrCities;
public ObservableCollection<ListBoxItem> PlacesOrCities
{
get { return _PlacesOrCities; }
set { _PlacesOrCities = value; RaisePropertyChanged("PlacesOrCities"); }
}
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
private void RaisePropertyChanged(string propertyName)
{
PropertyChanged?.Invoke(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
}
public ViewModel()
{
_PlacesOrCities = new ObservableCollection<ListBoxItem>();
}
}
To the following xaml:
<ListBox Name="lbPlacesCity" ItemsSource="{Binding Path=(gms:MainWindow.ViewModel).PlacesOrCities, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}">
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate DataType="models:ListBoxItem">
<TextBlock Style="{StaticResource MaterialDesignBody2TextBlock}" Text="{Binding Name}" Visibility="{Binding Visibility}" />
</DataTemplate>
</ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>
In the codebehind as such:
public ViewModel ViewModel { get; set; }
public MainWindow()
{
InitializeComponent();
ViewModel = new ViewModel();
DataContext = ViewModel;
}
And upon firing a button click event- I try to set the values of the observable collection using a in memory list:
private void StateProvince_SelectionChanged(object sender, SelectionChangedEventArgs e)
{
_CurrentSelectionPlaces = Canada.Provinces
.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Abbreviation == _SelectedStateProvince_ShortName)
.Place.OrderBy(x => x.Name).ToList();
foreach (var currentSelectionPlace in _CurrentSelectionPlaces)
{
ViewModel.PlacesOrCities.Add(currentSelectionPlace);
}
}
But it seems like none of the items are being added to the collection. Am I binding it incorrectly?
I've tried quite a few solutions but none of them seem to change the result- where no items in the list are being loaded into the collection properly.
EDIT:
It may be worth noting that the ListBoxItem as seen in the ViewModel is a custom model:
public class ListBoxItem
{
[J("Name")] public string Name { get; set; }
[J("PostalCodes")] public string[] PostalCodes { get; set; }
public Visibility Visibility { get; set; } = Visibility.Visible;
}
You should try to fit to the MVVM pattern, so the population of the list should occur at viewmodel level and not in the view's code behind.
You mentioned that you use a click event, instead of doing so, try to bind the command property of the button to a command in the viewmodel, see this link with an explanation of several types of commands and how to use them: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dn237302.aspx
In the other hand, if you already set the data context in the window constructor, to bind the ListBox items source you only need the name of the property to bind, "PlacesOrCities":
<ListBox Name="lbPlacesCity" ItemsSource="{Binding Path=PlacesOrCities, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}">
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate DataType="models:ListBoxItem">
<TextBlock Style="{StaticResource MaterialDesignBody2TextBlock}" Text="{Binding Name}" Visibility="{Binding Visibility}" />
</DataTemplate>
</ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>
It would also be recommendable trying to load the items in the list without any template, you can use ListBox DisplayMemberPath property to display the name, and once you are able to load items, apply the style.
Also in the way you use ObservableCollection, you actually need to replace the whole collection instead of adding to fire RaisePropertyChanged, try a normal property instead.
public ObservableCollection<ListBoxItem> PlacesOrCities {get;set;} = new ObservableCollection<ListBoxItem>();
Modifying the collection will update the UI, so whenever you use Add or Clear, the UI should know it.
Hope it helps.

WPF: Binding with two different lists

I have a few Problems with databinding in WPF.
I have a ListBox which has a binding to a BindingList.
<ListBox x:Name="SampleListBox" ItemsSource="{Binding List1}" ItemContainerStyle="{StaticResource ListBoxStyle}" BorderThickness="0" SelectedIndex="0" Margin="0">
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate >
<Border x:Name="border" Width="185">
<TextBlock Text="{Binding name}"/>
</Border>
</DataTemplate>
</ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>
Till here, everything works fine. Now I have a DataGrid which should be linked to another BindingList and display some strings of it. So for example, if the first item of the ListBox is selected, the grid should show data of the first item of the second list.
I know, how it would work if both, the ListBox and the Grid get the data from the same list, but I have no idea, what to do, if this is not possible and there are two different lists.
You could bind SelectedIndex for the ListBox control to an property of type Int (Property1) in your ViewModel.
Also two-way bind SelectedItem in the DataGrid to another property (Property2) of the second list type.
In the setter for the Property1, change Property2 to be the item at the index of Property1 - i.e. List2[Property1]. It should change the selected item in the DataGrid.
So you want to use the listbox to, essentially, set a filter on the grid?
Note that LBItem and ViewModel below need to implement INotifyPropertyChanged and fire their PropertyChanged events when properties change, or none of this will work. But I'm leaving out the boilerplate for clarity.
Lots of ways to do that.
C#
public class LBItem {
public ViewModel Parent { get; set; }
public IEnumerable<String> SubItems {
get {
return Parent.List2.Where( /* filter items here */ );
}
}
}
public class ViewModel {
//
public ObservableCollection<LBItem> LBItems { get; set; }
public LBItem SelectedLBItem { get; set; }
public List<String> List2 { get; set; }
}
XAML
<ListBox
Name="MasterLB"
ItemsSource="{Binding LBItems}"
SelectedItem={Binding SelectedLBItem}"
/>
<DataGrid
ItemsSource="{Binding ElementName=MasterLB, Path=SelectedItem.SubItems}"
/>
That will work whether or not you bind MasterLB.SelectedItem to a property on the ViewModel. But as long as you are binding MasterLB.SelectedItem, you could just as easily bind DataGrid.ItemsSource to SelectedLBItem.SubItems on the ViewModel, like so:
<DataGrid
ItemsSource="{Binding Path=SelectedLBItem.SubItems}"
/>
But the ElementName binding is handy for a lot of things, so I'm giving you both.
You could also do something like this:
C#
public class LBItem {
public IEnumerable<String> Filter(IEnumerable<String> fullList) {
return fullList.Where( /* filter items here */ );
}
}
public class ViewModel {
public ObservableCollection<LBItem> LBItems { get; set; }
private LBItem _selectedItem;
public LBItem SelectedLBItem {
get { return _selectedItem; }
set {
_selectedItem = value;
List2Filtered = (null == _selectedItem)
? new List<String>()
: _selectedItem.Filter(List2).ToList();
}
}
public List<String> List2 { get; set; }
public List<String> List2Filtered { get; set; }
}
XAML
<ListBox
Name="MasterLB"
ItemsSource="{Binding LBItems}"
SelectedItem={Binding SelectedLBItem}"
/>
<DataGrid
ItemsSource="{Binding List2Filtered}"
/>

Categories

Resources