Question

I have a typical MVVM scenario:
I have a ListBox that is binded to a List of StepsViewModels.
I define a DataTemplate so that StepViewModels are rendered as StepViews.
The StepView UserControl have a set of labels and TextBoxs.

What I want to do is to select the ListBoxItem that is wrapping the StepView when a textBox is focused. I’ve tried to create a style for my TextBoxs with the following trigger:

<Trigger Property="IsFocused" Value="true">
    <Setter TargetName="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource Mode=FindAncestor, AncestorType={x:Type ListBoxItem}}}" Property="IsSelected" Value="True"/>
</Trigger>

But I get an error telling me that TextBoxs don’t have an IsSelected property. I now that but the Target is a ListBoxItem.
How can I make it work?

Answer 1

There is a read-only property IsKeyboardFocusWithin that will be set to true if any child is focused. You can use this to set ListBoxItem.IsSelected in a Trigger:

<ListBox ItemsSource="{Binding SomeCollection}" HorizontalAlignment="Left">
    <ListBox.ItemContainerStyle>
        <Style TargetType="{x:Type ListBoxItem}">
            <Style.Triggers>
                <Trigger Property="IsKeyboardFocusWithin" Value="True">
                    <Setter Property="IsSelected" Value="True" />
                </Trigger>
            </Style.Triggers>
        </Style>
    </ListBox.ItemContainerStyle>
    <ListBox.ItemTemplate>
        <DataTemplate>
            <TextBox Width="100" Margin="5" Text="{Binding Name}"/>
        </DataTemplate>
    </ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>