Question

I have a custom user control in XAML that creates a ItemsControl which ItemsPanel is a 15 * 15 uniform grid. The ItemsControl is then populated with Cells on startup.

<UserControl x:Class="Words.GameBoard"
         xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
         xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
         xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" 
         xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" 
         xmlns:Words="clr-namespace:Words"
         xmlns:Cell="Words.CellCollection"
         xmlns:CellTile="Words.Cell"
         mc:Ignorable="d" 
         d:DesignHeight="300" d:DesignWidth="300">
<UserControl.Resources>
    <Words:CellCollection x:Key="CellCollectionData">
    </Words:CellCollection>
    <Style TargetType="ItemsControl">
        <Setter Property="ItemsPanel">
            <Setter.Value>
                <ItemsPanelTemplate>
                    <UniformGrid IsItemsHost="True" Margin="0" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch"/>
                </ItemsPanelTemplate>
            </Setter.Value>
        </Setter>
        <Setter Property="ItemTemplate">
            <Setter.Value>
                <DataTemplate>
                    <Words:Cell>
                    </Words:Cell>
                </DataTemplate>
            </Setter.Value>
        </Setter>
    </Style>
</UserControl.Resources>
<ItemsControl Name="BoardControl">
</ItemsControl>

The control is added to the MainWindow like this

            <clr:GameBoard>
            </clr:GameBoard>

How do i bind the Items of a ItemsControl to a Array? I don’t need Observables and stuff, I just want the Items to refresh when I click a button. Is this possible? I’ve very new to both C# and XAML

Thanks

Answer 1

You need to set the ItemsSource on your ItemsControl to bind the array like this:

<ItemsControl Name="BoardControl" ItemsSource={DynamicResource CellCollectionData} />

I am assuming you wanted the CellCollectionData bound. Typically, however, I would expect the data to be in the DataContext, in which case you would use:

<ItemsControl Name="BoardControl" ItemsSource={Binding} />

(if the UserControl’s DataContext was set to the array)

or

<ItemsControl Name="BoardControl" ItemsSource={Binding MyArray} />

(if the UserControl’s DataContext was a class that contained a property that returned the array)

While you are learning and testing, I would suggest converting the ItemsControl to a ListBox, so you can see that items are actually added (by clicking on a selectable item). Once you get the look right, you can change it back to an ItemsControl (which doesn’t allow selecting an item).