Develop Reference

Trying to understand different behavior in binding for DataGrid between WindowsForms and WPF

In Windows Forms I used:
dataGridView.DataSource = new BindingList<MyItem>();
The equivalent in WPF seems to be:
dataGrid.ItemsSource = new BindingList<MyItem>();
What I don't understand (and perhaps I'm doing something wrong) is that in the WPF case, the binding doesn't seem to be bidirectional. That is to say: when I modify a MyItem, it is not automatically reflected in the view.

Use ObservableCollection<MyItem>.
MyItem must implement INotifyPropertyChanged and raise PropertyChanged when any of its property values changes.
That'll update the grid cells.
If you plan to do anything much with WPF, learn MVVM and use Binding. Assigning a collection to a property doesn't bind it.
XAML:
<DataGrid
x:Name="dataGrid"
ItemsSource="{Binding MyItemCollection}"
...
/>
You can also create a Binding programmatically, if you really want to make a lot of extra work for yourself.
Seems like ObservableCollection has some improvements over BindingList.

DisplayMemberPath Behavior

I was wandering if someone can explain to me how the Dependency Property DisplayMemberPath works?
I am trying to create Custom ItemsControl that has property like DisplayMemberPath of a ComboBox, in otherwords after setting the ItemsSource I want to be able to specify the Property to Display.
At the moment if I do somthing like:
<cc:MyControl ... DisplayMemberPath="MyObjectDescription" ... >
(Yes I have overridden the DisplayMemberPath, its besides the point).
It displays a list of items, but they each Display "MyObjectDescription", instead of the value that that Property holds for each object in the ItemsSource.
And I believe its because I am missing something in regards to how DisplayMemberPath Property works.
Thanks All. :)

There are two types of DisplayMemberPath. One that supports Binding and one where you have to set a string value. In your case as I can see you wish to implement the second one. To do so create a property inside your custom control of type string and name it DisplayMemberPath. Override the methode OnInitialized in your container with your custom logic where you tell the container to manipulate the path of the binding to DataContext by changing binding's path to the string value as you specified in DisplayMemeberPath. WPF calls OnInitalized once any control is completely initalized but before its about to get rendered. I hope this helps you any futher.

I'm assuming your control is like MyControl and MyControlItem like ListBox and ListBoxItem.
You can access the DisplayMemberPath of MyControl when the MyControlItem is being created and use it to get the data from the DataContext.

Bit late to party, but maybe other could be helped
If your purpose is barely to use Itemscontrol over ListBox/View, you may consider to define the Datatemplate for the itemscontrol's Items instead of packing this in a Usercontrol:
<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding myObjectCollection}">
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding myObjectProp}"/> (or whatever...)
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>

binding to items self (this) for a button in a itemtemplate/datatemplate?

I've found similar examples for this but nothing that solves my exact issue :(
I'm using silverlight on Phone7, and I have a itemslist that I bind a List to the ItemsSource.
In my dataTemplate, I have a button, and what I really want to do is set the button.tag property to give me back the original instance of the myClass object that is bound to that template.
I cant seem to figure out how in the xaml binding, to specify a binding to the object instance for that template. Any help is appreciated

I figured it out for anyone that needs it in the future -
What you need is
Tag="{Binding BindsDirectlyToSource=True}"
That will bind to the source of that itemtemplate

SL Firing a Command from Within a ListItem Data Template, to a ViewModel for the MainPage.xaml

I may be making this more complicated than necessary ... but here goes.
I have my MainPage.xaml, in there I have references to two other UserControl's, ResultsView, and DetailsView.
Inside of the ResultsView, I have a ListBox bound to an ObservableCollection of custom items, I have a DataTemplate that is rendering each item. The item has a CaseID, and when I click on it, it's displayed as a HyperlinkButton, I need a Command I've set in the MainPageViewModel to fire, which handles changing the visibility to hide the ResultsView, and show the DetailsView.
How do I bind the Command of the Hyperlinkbutton to the Command located in my MainPageViewModel?
Thanks in advance!
edit for clarification:
MainPage.xaml
<resultsView:ResultsView/>
<detailsView:DetailsView/>
Each of the two views (ResultsView & DetailsView) have their own ViewModel. So I'm going from my DataTemplate which resides in a ListBox inside my ResultsView, I need to go up to the MainPageViewModel, an extra step than your answer mentioned. Tried your method naming my MainPage.xaml to Name="mainPage", and using that as the ElementName in my HyperlinkButton, but no luck. I'll do some research on the RelativeSource option and see if I can make that work.
Thanks for your help so far.
edit 2: Forgot to add that the DataTemplate is in a ResourceDictionary, not in the ResultsView.

Well, it depends on the specific details, not all of which you've told us, but I can give you some examples.
Let's say that your DataTemplate for the custom items resides in the XAML of the ResultsView user control. That's a good spot for it but you might have put it in a resource dictionary.
As you say, the ListBox is bound to the collection of custom items. Let's further assume that the custom items collection is itself a property in your MainPageViewModel. And you've said clearly that the command you want to bind to is also in MainPageViewModel.
So the problem, which is a very common one, is that you are working inside a template associated with a binding to a collection, and so your DataContext is a custom item. It is no longer the main view-model itself. That's great as you show appropriate properties of the custom item like CaseID. But it's not great when you want to escape to the top-level of view-model.
If what I've said is true, then the ResultsView user control is in fact probably bound to the MainPageViewModel because you haven't "drilled into" the custom items collection yet. So, what you need to do is find a way using the binding syntax to reference the ResultsView user control from inside the DataTemplate for the ListBox. If you can do that, then you've escaped the collection.
There are two main approaches to do this:
ElementName syntax
RelativeSource syntax
I'll describe ElementName syntax and you can look up the other one.
Part 1) Name your ResultsView UserControl element like this:
<UserControl ....
Name="resultsView">
<!-- ... -->
Part 2) Inside your DataTemplate where you are defining the appearance of the hyperlink use the ElementName syntax to refer to that element:
<TextBlock>
<Hyperlink Command="{Binding DataContext.ItemDetailsCommand, ElementName=resultsView}"/>
</TextBlock>
So first we use ElementName to get the ResultsView UserControl element, and then we have a path with two pieces: the first piece is the DataContext property of the ResultsView which gives us the MainPageViewModel (yeah!), and then the property of the command we want to invoke.
That's one way to "escape" the binding and issue commands found at a higher level in the view-model.

WPF Databinding in XAML

I have little problem with databinding in my current project.
I have an ObservableCollection I want to bind to an ListBox.
public ObservableCollection<GeoDataContainer> geoList = new ObservableCollection<GeoDataContainer>();
...later...
geoListBox.ItemsSource = geoList;
This code works fine. The Listbox has a datatemplate and everything looks perfect.
But I don't want to use C# code for binding. I want to make the binding in the XAML Code.
I am searching for days but I don't get it. These are two lines C# code but to archive this in XAML it seems impossible without creating my own class for my collection or adding a DataProvider or resources or whatever.
Is there no easy way to do it?

All you have to do is expose the collection and bind to it. For example, if you expose it as:
public ICollection<GeoDataContainer> GeoList
{
get { return geoList; }
}
You will be able to bind to it as:
<ListBox ItemsSource="{Binding GeoList}"/>
The "trick" is to make sure that the DataContext of the ListBox is the class that exposes the GeoList property.

Another good way would be instantiating geoList as a resource
<WindowResources>
<l:GeoCollection x:Key="geoList"/>
</WindowResources>
Then you have
GeoCollection geoList = FindResource("geoList") as GeoCollection;
Of course, this is for cases when the data is related to the view only. If this is related to model or modelview, you use DataContext and bind to its properties.

Kent suggestion is the way to go...
On a further note, if you do not wish to set your DataContext to the list, you can also retrieve the property with an another form of binding:
Make sure your root control has a name, i.e. "Root"
{Binding ElementName=Root, Path=GeoList}