Question

I have a combobox bound to a collection, so the user can select one of the items. So far, so good.

The content of the combo box is driven by the item, but also by a value in my viewmodel. Imagine the value in my viewmodel is the language, I have dictionary of descriptions by language in my bound item, and I want to display the correct one.

How should I go about this?

Answer 1

Make an observable collection in your viewmodel of type Item. Bind the itemsource of your viewmodel to this observable collection.

public class Item
{
public String description {get;set;}
public String language {get;set;}
public override ToString()
{
      return description;
}
}

Selected item would also be bound to a property of type Item as well.

The override of ToString displays the description.

The Selected item propery will have a reference to the selected object property where you can get the language from.