Question

Here’s the problem.
Given a large/intricate datatemplate A, which has 3 sections – General, Properties, Misc.
Imagine 3 grids for each.
Now I need to reuse the Properties section of the above Datatemplate in another place. Reasons: To avoid redundancy + ensure that further updates to the datatemplate are applied identically to all usages.

So I guess what I am asking for is an ability to slot in a link to a child DataTemplate in a parent Datatemplate. What’s the best way to go about this ?

I found one way to do this.. but I’m not sure if its the right way or the best.. Posting it as an answer below so that it can be rated.

Answer 1

I used a ContentPresenter to slot in a child datatemplate via its ContentTemplate property.

// child
<DataTemplate x:Key="propertiesVMTemplate">
    <toolkit:DataGrid Style= ....  // lots of stuff here
    </toolkit:DataGrid>
</DataTemplate>

// parent
<DataTemplate x:Key="nodeVMTemplate">
    ... general section
        // and the link
        <ContentPresenter Content="{Binding Properties}" ContentTemplate="{StaticResource propertiesVMTemplate}"/>

        ...misc section stuff
</DataTemplate>