Question

I have a listbox which is populated through databinding to an ObservableCollection

<ListBox Height="198" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="12,45,0,0" Name="listBox_users" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="204" ItemsSource="{Binding}">
            <ListBox.ItemTemplate>
            <DataTemplate>
                <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
                    <TextBlock Text="{Binding username}" Name="left" Width="50" />
                    <TextBlock Text="{Binding real_name}" Name="right" Width="100" />
                </StackPanel>
            </DataTemplate>
            </ListBox.ItemTemplate>
        </ListBox>

I want to get the string value of just username for whatever item is selected. Generally in the past I’ve done this with a convoluted indexing system, but there must be a way to do it from listbox_users.Items or listbox_users.SelectedItem. I have no idea how to accomplish this in the context of databinding, I’m still very new to the concept

Answer 1

Since you are using data binding and setting the ItemTemplate, the ListBox.SelectedItem will return the DataContext of that item and not the templated element. I assume that the ItemsSource is a List of some type of view model. Here is an example where the ItemsSource is of type ObservableCollection<UserViewModel>

UserViewModel selectedUser = listBox_user.SelectedItem as UserViewModel;
string username = selectedUser.username;