Dynamic Controls in WPF - Adding a variable number of controls - c#

I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to dynamically add controls into another control (I know this is a bit vague...). My program is in C# 4.0, and WPF. Basically, I'm trying to create a datagrid but as opposed to having normal type 'cells' (ie text, hyperlink etc), I need each cell to hold a number of items. I figured that this wasn't possible in the datagrid, so I'm trying to do the following: Using a stack panel, add a variable number of wrap panels. Each wrap panel will contain 7 grids, where each grid will hold the data I want (I'll likely use some user control in place of the grid I think...)
An example of the code I have so far...
<StackPanel Height="559" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="24,11,0,0" Name="tyStackPanel" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="783">
<WrapPanel Height="100">
<Grid Width="100" Height="100">
</Grid>
</WrapPanel>
<WrapPanel Height="100">
</WrapPanel>
</StackPanel>
Is there a way to create a variable number of Wrap Panels though? (ie like you would have a variable number of rows in a datagrid)
Any help and suggestions is much appreciated!
P.S. Figure I should explain what I'm trying to achieve a bit better. I have a collection of items, each with 5 properties that I want displayed together. These items are grouped by Name (like a row in a data column) and a column header (which is not one of the 5 properties). I want to group the collection by (Name, ColumnHeader) pairs, and then in each "cell" display those 5 properties. In the way I'm trying to set it up above, there would be a WrapPanel per 'Name' and a Cell/Grid contained in it for each ColumnHeader.

WPF supports this very well with the ItemsControl and its various derived controls, one of which is the DataGrid, which actually does support the scenario you're looking for.
Basically, when you use an ItemsControl, DataGrid or one of these item controls, you bind the ItemsSource to whatever property holds your data items, and define the DataTemplates for each item, which can be any arbitrarily-complex block of XAML. For DataGrid, you can swap a normal column for a DataGridTemplateColumn, which can, again, be as complex as you want.
Check out the Data Templating Overview for, well, an overview.

Related

DataGridTemplateColumn Column Span in DataGrid WPF

I am making UI as shown in picture below.
It is a DataGrid, Itemsource is bound to a List. I cannot set ColumnSpan for the TextBox. First, I tried it with a UserControl but I couldn't fix DataGridTemplateColumn Header, then I tried DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate but couldn't set the ColumnSpan.
Is there any way/method to make this kind of Datagrid?
Thank you in advance.
There is no ColumnSpan in the DataGrid, like in the normal Grid.
To get this kind of layout you have 3 choices, all with heavy drawbacks unfortunately.
1 merge cells
Use the merge event to merge cells together in code behind. See a
guide to this here This requires a large chunk of code behind
coding to get this right with your layout. So I would really advise
against this.
2 RowDetails
Use the build in RowDetails. This doesn't get the layout exactly like your's but is the easiest and closest build in function to your requirement.
It will look something like this:
It's easy to configure:
Set: RowDetailsVisibilityMode="Visible" in the DataGrid XAML.
And define your template for the row:
<DataGrid.RowDetailsTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Desc}" Background="LightGray"/>
</DataTemplate>
</DataGrid.RowDetailsTemplate>
[+] All DataGrid functions will work: Sorting, Adding Rows, Resizing ...
[-] The Details section span over the whole row.
See this tutorial about what you can do with row details.
3 Hack something together
With templates and code behindz. Some resources that might help you:
Override Row Template
Build a custom cell template
DataGrid in general
I have come with other solution using Grids, List and UserControl. In a simple way, I made it as following:
DataGrid is not suitable for what you want.
You had better use ListView or ListBox and datatemplate. By using them, you can show every kind of data in the way you want without DataGrid.
If you are not familiar with listview and datatemplete, please see the link below.
https://www.wpftutorial.net/ListBoxDataTemplate.html

WPF - Panel with expandable control for chopped elements

I have an application with minimizable controls. Minimized items are displayed in a horizontal stackpanel. On resize (shrink) of the application items could be chopped because of too little space.
To avoid this my idea was to move chopped elements to an expandable control (like this)
The application follows the MVVM pattern, the items in the panel are in an ItemsControl bound to the view model.
My implementation for now is to use a custom panel where the chopped elements are handed out with a property "SpillOverElements". I wanted to bind another control (panel, expander or popup) to this property. The problem is that I am not able to bind to the "SpillOverElements" property of the "SpillOverPanel" inside the ItemsControl.
<ItemsControl>
ItemTemplate="{StaticResource DummyContentDataTemplate}"
ItemsSource="{Binding DisplayElementsCollection}">
<ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
<ItemsPanelTemplate>
<local:SpillOverPanel />
</ItemsPanelTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
</ItemsControl>
So the question is how could I bind to "SpillOverElements" property of the "SpillOverPanel". Any other ideas how to implement this are welcome, too. I am not sure if my way is the right approach.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Forgive me, there's a lot of spitballing in the text below.
A Single, Reusable ItemsControl class
This will probably be a rather involved implementation. You will likely need to create entirely new WPF Controls, in the form of both a "SpilloverItemsControl" class and a "SpilloverItem" class to serve as the item container, for items displayed in the spillover control. The SpilloverItemsControl class would of course inherit from ItemsControl.
The SpilloverItem container will expose a property - "IsSpilledOver" (or something like that), which the parent control will automatically set to true or false based on various size and visibility calculations.
Your SpilloverItemsControl class will be layed out as a sort of composite control, providing 2 different ItemsControls within its ControlTemplate - one whose items' Visibility will be set to Visible if "IsSpilledOver" set to 'false', and set to 'Collapsed' if not; and another one to serve as the 'spillover' area, which will display only the items with "IsSpilledOver" set to true.
An Alternate Approach
An alternative approach, but slightly less reusable, is to have the "IsSpilledOver" property exist in your item ViewModel, and create a minimal Behavior to determine when it should be set to true or false. Then in your View, you would again just have two different ItemsControls bound to the same collection. One to display the 'non spilled-over' items and one to display the 'spilled-over' items. The visibility here, would be set in your ItemTemplate.

WPF Combobox issue

I have a combo box in a wpf c# application. In the xaml i am trying to do the following.
The ItemsSource comes from one variable.
SelectedItem sets a value on another variable
But i want the text displayed to come from a new variable.
How do i stop making the selected itemssource appear as the main text?
<ComboBox x:Name="ComboPlay" FontSize="14" MinHeight="20" Margin="0,2,4,4" Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="3" MinWidth="160"
ItemsSource="{Binding ComboBoxList}"
SelectedItem="{Binding OutputChannel.Value, Converter={StaticResource ResourceKey=ValueToStringConverter}}" Grid.ColumnSpan="1"
IsEnabled="{Binding IsDriveChoiceEnabled}"
HorizontalContentAlignment="Center" VerticalContentAlignment="Center"/>
If you mean changing the display of the item currently selected (the portion of the control shown when the dropdown is closed), take a look at Can I use a different Template for the selected item in a WPF ComboBox than for the items in the dropdown part?
Honestly, a quick search dug up that one and many similar ones. Probably the simplest way, like the linked answer, is to figure out if your item is wrapped in a ComboBoxItem and display it differently then. Or you could re-template the ComboBox. Or you could derive from it (and re-template it) and provide a separate dependency property for the template of the selected item, if you expect to reuse it in different contexts. The sky's the limit.

wpf updating text block

I am trying to create some form of updating area in wpf. It needs to be up datable as it will be connected to a live stream of text that will constantly need to be displayed.
The idea is that I will have a stream of data which will comprise of a UserName and Text, this will come in a random times and need to be displayed:
User:Test :: Test:TextData
User:NextTest :: Test:TestData
and so on each item on a new line, so the object needs to be up datable in a scrolling format so the new item will be added to the bottom.
Currently I am using:
<ScrollViewer VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto">
<StackPanel>
<TextBox Margin="5" TextWrapping="Wrap" AcceptsReturn="True" IsReadOnly="True" x:Name="LogDetails"></TextBox>
</StackPanel>
</ScrollViewer>
However this does not really show the data very well, the data is just string based, does anyone know of a better solution?
Thanks
The question is a little bit vague, but here a try:
As an option, why not using TextBlock instead of TextBox, if the text changes automatically?
Caveat: If you want to use the TextBox, don't forget to set the UndoLimit to 0 . Otherwise, you will have a lot of memory consumption, if you change the TextBox contents continously.
<TextBox UndoLimit="0" .../>
If your text is a concattenation of multiple string-elements, create a layout with a grid and use multiple TextBlocks to shown the data more nicely? Maybe there is also some data you can visualize as symbols?
If it is a log, maybe you want to fill a list with strings and set this list as the ItemsSource of an ItemsControl? Through the ItemTemplate-property you can then specify the layout of each item? Use an ObservableCollection<string>, then you only have to add the strings to the collection and the ItemsControl will refresh automatically. You can use ItemsControl, ListBox, ListView for such a log.

Double list - WPF Toolkit DataGrid

I have a datagrid from wpf Toolkit, with the itemsource binded to a Observable<Item>. In the Item Class, I have another Observable<bool> list containing the values to be displayed.
I want to display these values in a custom template. If possible, I want to show other rows as well (which are normal Properties).
How can I perform this? Thank you for your answers.
Update (just to make clear): the second list should be displayed in normal columns, not as master/detail. Imagine the second list would contain 2 bools, and the Item class contains 1 extra property. In that case, 3 columns should be shown.
You can create second datagrid and bind SelectedItem.Items from first grid to itemssource of second. Or you can include second datagrid in row details of your datagrid like this:
<DataGrid.RowDetailsTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<DataGrid ItemsSource="{Binding Items}"/>
</DataTemplate>
</DataGrid.RowDetailsTemplate>
Take a look at this examples and this
You can write attached property to datagrid which will create additional columns for you on grid. This property implementor will define binding with individual Observable values.

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