Question

I am working towards producing a small application that parses XML from a URL and populates a Grid panel based on the contents of the XML. Currently, I have many other elements working properly, but still lack the knowledge needed to hide or show certain columns within the table and having it resize properly. Here’s the basic structure of my XAML thus far.

Currently, I feel as though my solution is very poor. I have hard coded each coulmn and row within the Grid and tied their Visibility to a code behind Converter. Under certain conditions, this Converter will return a Visibility of Hidden, but under other conditions it returns the value to display within the table. This feels very sloppy to me, so I assume I’ve designed this system incorrectly.

My question is more about the proper way to setup this type of system. I am much more familiar with generating the document structure itself within some business logic and then token swapping that generated structure with a token inside the raw document itself. What is a best way to accomplish the goal I’m pursuing?

Answer 1

You could provide the XDocument or XElement retrieved from the web service as the DataContext of an ItemsControl with a Grid. You would then use a DataTemplate to display the information.

XML:

<Entities>
    <Person Name="Ted" Age="42" />
    <Person Name="Sam" Age="19" />
    <Person Name="Bob" Age="25" />
    <Person Name="Angie" Age="38" />
</Entities>

Code Behind:

this.DataContext = xdoc;

XAML:

<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding Root.Elements[Person]}"
              Grid.IsSharedSizeGroup="True">
    <ItemsControl.Resources>
        <DataTemplate DataType="Person">
            <Grid>
                <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                    <ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="NameColumn"/>
                    <ColumnDefinition SharedSizeGroup="AgeColumn" />
                </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                <TextBox Text="{Binding Path=Attribute[Name].Value}" />
                <TextBox Text="{Binding Path=Attribute[Age].Value}"
                         Grid.Column="1"/>
            </Grid>
        </DataTemplate>
    </ItemsControl.Resources>
</ItemsControl>

Linq to XML resources:

• WPF Data Binding with LINQ to XML Overview
• WPF Data Binding Using LINQ to XML Example
• How to: Bind to XDocument, XElement, or LINQ for XML Query Results