I'm trying to get the Infragistics TabGroupPane to integrate with Caliburn.Micro as per the standard WPF TabControl.
I've tried adding a new convention in the bootstrapper (a modification of the standard WPF one) but have not had any success.
My TabGroupPane is defined as:
<igDock:TabGroupPane x:Name="Items"/>
When an item is added to the collection an exception is thrown "InvalidOperationException: A TabGroupPane can only contain 'ContentPane' and 'ContentPanePlaceholder' instances".
Also, if my TabGroupPane is inside a DockManager:
<igDock:XamDockManager>
<igDock:DocumentContentHost>
<igDock:SplitPane>
<igDock:TabGroupPane x:Name="Items" />
</igDock:SplitPane>
</igDock:DocumentContentHost>
</igDock:XamDockManager>
It doesn't appear to be found by Caliburn at all.
Has anyone else done this before?
Cheers!
Update
I have created my own dock manager class, a blog post explaining it or just the code on bitbucket. Hopefully this will be useful to someone!
If you can't get the ContentPaneFactory suggested in Infragistics blog to fill the TabGroupPane through binding, you might consider these alternative approaches:
keep your VM with BindableCollection in place, subscribe VM change notification in code-behind and change the TabGroupPane programmatically according to the actual change occurred in observed collection
build a custom IResult and invoke it from VM (using Coroutine.Execute) according to the desired TabGroupPane variation.
In IResult.Execute body you have access to ActionExecutionContext.View, so you can reach the TabGroupPane by name and operate whathever action you need on it.
This way you keep your VM free from direct reference to the particular UI control library.
define an interface abstracting the whole Docking Manager, and use it as a service from VM (see this post about the implementation of a Docking Manager). This approach diverges quite a lot from the MVVM idea, but unfortunately most docking library are not very MVVM friendly...
You can add bespoke controls to the ConventionManager class in Caliburn Micro, I would simply follow the example of the standard TabGroupPanel.
I would be wary of amending the actual class though, If I remember rightly (there is a recent post on the discussion forums at CaliburnMicro Codeplex page) You can also add bespoke conventions to the bootstrapper by overriding the Config method? I say this because if you amend the class itself, you will tie yourself to a particular version of Caliburn.
Its a really simple framework and easy to get to know intimately, I would recommend stepping through the code thats run when you bind a view to a viewmodel, there you will learn how these conventions are setup.
Have you tried using a more explicit binding? Caliburn can only do automatic binding on certain elementtypes, and I guess Infragistics TabGroupPane is not one of them!
I guess you have to use something like this:
<igDock:TabGroupPane x:Name="Items" ItemSource={Binding <what to bind to>}/>
Note: This is just used as an example, not sure if ItemSource is the correct property!
Related
So I am trying to incorporate dynamic-data-display for WPF into my MVVM caliburn project (I am using the LineChart control from future of dynamic data display, if anyone wishes to test this error). There is a LineChart that binds to an ObservableCollection. It only works if the collection is made in the code-behing of the control which has the LineChart. If you try to bind to a collection the ViewModel the dependency property raises an InvalidOperationException. How can this problem be solved?
I have seen that happen when you change the collection which the property is binded to and know ways to fix that, but never in the actuall proccess of binding. I've tried putting the creation of the collection in a dispatcher invoke (like you wold do with an add or remove) but it didn't help.
Edit: As I stated in the second paragraph the exception is NOT at the point of changing the collection. It is being raised at the point of binding. Even more, I have tried to use the solutions in the other question and they did not help.
Edit #2: The exception message is "The calling thread cannot access this object because a different thread owns it".
People keep telling me solutions to collection changes but it doesn't even get to the changes. It fails at binding stage (ItemsSource="{binding collection}" in xaml).
Edit #3: I double-checked and noticed that the ViewModel is created in the UI thread which only made more questions.
Ok, it took me quite a while to find the root cause of your problem.
Unlike from what others suspected, this isn't a multithreading issue at all.
Instead it's an issue with the DynamicDataDisplay library you are using.
There's a clear reason why your ItemsSource binding works on your ListBox object and doesn't work on Chart (of type Microsoft.Research.DynamicDataDisplay.Markers2.LineChart) :
Chart neither has a visual nor a logical parent.
You can check this if you insert the following code into Button_Click and set a breakpoint after them:
var visualParent = VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(Chart);
var logicalParent1 = Chart.Parent;
var logicalParent2 = LogicalTreeHelper.GetParent(Chart);
You can see that they are all null.
So the Binding that you set on LineChart.ItemsSourceProperty with Path=ExampleCollection cannot find any source value and just assigns null to the ItemsSource. That's because the DataContext is inherited from the parent - but when there isn't any parent then there isn't any DataContext to inherit either.
And because Chart isn't part of the visual or logical tree, there is no (easy) way any binding to an outside DataContext can even work.
To verify that the DataContext is null just add this line to the preceding code:
var dataContext = Chart.DataContext;
Now there are three possible solutions for this.
First, you can manually inherit the DataContext from Window using the following code:
private void Window_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
// Just add the following line.
Chart.DataContext = DataContext;
Chart.StrokeThickness = 3;
Chart.SetBinding(LineChart.ItemsSourceProperty, new Binding("ExampleCollection"));
// ...
}
If you simply add this one line, you'll see that your other multithreaded code is working just fine and the chart is updated with some kind of sine wave pattern.
Second, as another possible solution you can consult the documentation for the DynamicDataDisplay library and check the correct and intended way to assign an ItemsSource to a LineChart using data binding.
I tried searching for documentation myself and even debugged a lot of code from that library for two hours or so, but the documentation is nearly non-existent and the code is far too complex to fully understand it in a few hours. I tried using several tools (Visual Studio Live Visual Tree, Snoop, ...) for displaying the visual tree of the ChartPlotter but I got a StackOverflowException every time, so essentially something in this library is kind of flawed and buggy.
Third, you can use a Resource as a kind of proxy object to create a "binding bridge" to the same instance of the MainWindowViewModel.
For this to work, you have to do something like suggested here: Data binding outside the visual tree. Data Context bridging
Bottom line: So, if you just want to get the job done, I would set the DataContext in code like shown above. (Especially if the instance of the ViewModel in the DataContext never changes.)
If you want to use pure data binding then I would probably use the "binding bridge" or search for another charting library that supports this scenario.
As THIS thread states you can use the UI dispatcher and invoke the function that changes your ObservableCollection on the UI thread. Application.Current.Dispatcher should give you the UI dispatcher. As the solution suggests it can be right in the ViewModel. However, a cleaner and more generic solution is to IMPLEMENT a concurrent and still observable collection it would still store the dispatcher and run the changes on the UI (or specified) thread.
I have a listview and would like to update the text of one of the columns for a specific listviewitem (row).
How would I go about doing this?
Hard to say without any context because there are so many ways you could populate your list!
The generic answer is you bind your list to a collection view which itself binds its source to your viewmodel (or you bind directly to your viewmodel if you don't need CollectionView features).
When you want to modify your list, you make sure you raise a modification notification on your property, and XAML binding will take care of updating everything.
It is really basic stuff on dependency property and binding, you should read more about this topic. MVVM-light is a very light framework that allows you to take care of all kinds of binding-related issues with a very clean and neat flavor. You will also find some very good self-explanatory webcasts from the author of the website about all those topics.
How can I find and access to Elements which are bind to an object in XAML ?
Edit : Let's say I have a EmployeeViewModel which is assigned to EmployeeView's DataContext and a EmployeeModel inside my EmployeeViewModel, I want to know which properties of my model bounded to View's Framework Elements (Controls) also I want to have an access to each control bounded to my model properties.
UPDATE: In light of the question being clarified by SaberAmani in that he is trying to add validation to his models and show a validation summary..see the links below.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff714593.aspx
http://codeblitz.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/wpf-validation-summary-control/
http://wpfvalidation.codeplex.com/
http://f10andf11.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/wpf-validation-summary-control.html
For reference for people that want to discover Bindings:
You don't mention if your XAML is in WPF, Silverlight, Metro or Phone7 (thus you may be more restricted in what you can do).
There seem to be a few possible ways to do what you want:
Reflection
MarkupObject / MarkupWriter
TypeDescriptor+DependencyPropertyDescriptor
Custom Binding Markup Extension
Take a look at this link.
http://blog.spencen.com/2008/05/02/how-to-get-a-list-of-bindings-in-wpf.aspx
He uses reflection and suggests this is the classical way to do it...but also mentions MarkupWriter as another possibility. NOTE: the reflection method doesn't discover Attached Properties which may have bindings.
Here are some links that use MarkupWriter...this would allow you to discover the attached properties.
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/21139/An-XAML-Serializer-Preserving-Bindings
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/marlat/archive/2009/05/24/getbindingexpression-a-good-way-to-iterate-over-all-dependency-properties-in-visual-tree-in-silverlight-3.aspx
Related links:
Retrieve all Data Bindings from WPF Window
Getting list of all dependency/attached properties of an Object
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/wpf/thread/580234cb-e870-4af1-9a91-3e3ba118c89c
you could use reflection to loop through properties and use FrameworkElement.GetBindingExpression on each property to build, for a given Framework element, all its bindings.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.frameworkelement.getbindingexpression
I've recently been learning the MVVM pattern in WPF and just started making my first proper, rather big application. So far it's all smooth sailing, and I'm liking what I'm seeing a lot. However I recently met something of a stumbling block.
The application is built with a main TabControl, each TabItem containing a pretty big details view.
TabControl inside main View, ItemsSource bound to MainViewModel.OpenTabs
TabItem with data specific View+ViewModel
TabItem with data specific View+ViewModel
TabItem with data specific View+ViewModel
etc...
The OpenTabs collection is an ObservableCollection<BaseViewModel> on MainViewModel, and the TabControl's SelectedItem is bound to MainViewModel.ActiveTab.
So far so good! However, what I'm not sure I'm getting is how to handle closing of tabs while at the same time following MVVM. If I wasn't trying to be strict with the MVVM (in order to learn it properly), I'd just bind a MouseDown-event on the TabItem-headers and thus get a reference to the clicked item in that event, removing it from the OpenTabs collection in that way. But - unless I'm mistaken - the interaction logic shouldn't need references to actual UI items in order to be effective and proper MVVM.
So, how do I handle this MVVM style? Do I use a command that sends a specific parameter with it to my MainViewModel? It seems like the preferred implementation of ICommand in MVVM doesn't take object parameters (looking at MVVM Light as well as some other tutorials).
Should I just create a CloseTab(int id) public method on my MainViewModel and call that from the view codebehind after catching the Click on my TabItem close button? This seems like MVVM-cheating. :)
Also a final note - this should work even if I click close on a TabItem that isn't the currently active one. Otherwise it wouldn't be hard to setup with OpenTabs.Remove(ActiveTab).
Thanks for any help! I'd also appreciate any links to recommended reading/watching regarding these problems.
Solution: It seems the best way is to use a command that can accept command parameters. I used the RelayCommand from MVVM Light framework:
In MainViewModel:
CloseTabCommand = new RelayCommand<BaseViewModel>((vm) =>
{
OpenTabs.Remove(vm);
});
In XAML:
<Button
Command="{Binding Source={StaticResource MainViewModel}, Path=CloseTabCommand}"
CommandParameter="{Binding}">
Note: Your binding paths may of course vary depending on how your Views and ViewModels are set up.
The best and the right way is to create the command. In different frameworks ICommand usually has two implementation, with the parameter and without one (as often you do not need it).
MVVM light has two ICommand implementation as well: RelayCommand and RelayCommand<T>
I suggest creating your own DelegateCommand implementation, a good example on how to this can be found here or here. Or use the Prism variant, you can download it here.
With a DelegateCommand you can pass arguments down to your ViewModel.
I am required to use the mvvm pattern. I know that the viewmodel should not care about the view from what I been reading. As a result I don't know how to solve this problem:
I have a dll that basically turns a textbox and listview into an autocomplete control:
SomeDll.InitAutocomplete<string>(TextBox1, ListView1, SomeObservableCollection);
anyways I don't know how to call that method from the viewmodel using the mvvm patter. if I reference the controls in the view I will be braking the rules.
I am new to MVVM pattern and my company requires me to follow it. what will be the most appropriate way of solving this problem?
I know I will be able to solve it by passing the entire view to the viewmodel as a constructor parameter but that will totaly break the mvvm pattern just because I need to reference two controls in the view.
What you're doing here is a pure view concern, so I'd recommend doing it in the view (i.e. the code-behind). The view knows about the VM and its observable collection, so why not let the code behind make this call?
(I'd also recommend seeing if you can get a non-code/XAML API for "SomeDll", but I have no idea how much control you might have over that)
There are two things that I'd point out here -
First, this is effectively all View-layer code. As such, using code behind isn't necessarily a violation of MVVM - you're not bridging that View->ViewModel layer by including some code in the code behind, if necessary.
That being said, this is often handled more elegantly in one of two ways -
You could wrap this functionality into a new control - effectively an AutoCompleteTextBox control. This would allow you to include the "textbox" and "listview" visual elements into the control template, and bind to the completion items within Xaml.
You could turn this into an attached property (or Blend behavior), which would allow you to "attach" it to a text box, and add that functionality (all within xaml). The items collection would then become a binding on the attached property (or behavior).