Question

I haven’t been able to find an answer to this.

I have a database that has image paths in it (“images/myimage.jpg”). These images exist on my asp.net site which is also where I host the SL. I want to bind these images to my ListBox control so that the image displays.

I have read that since I have a string value, “images/myimage.jpg”, that I need to convert it to a BitMap image. I have done this:

The xaml:

 <Image Source="{Binding ImageFile, Converter={StaticResource ImageConverter}}"/>

The ImageConverter class:

    public object Convert(object value, Type targetType,
                                  object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
            {
                try
                {
                    Uri source= new Uri(value.ToString());
                    return new BitmapImage(source);
                }
                catch(Exception ex)
                {
                    return new BitmapImage();
                }
            }

I get an error when creating the URI, “The Format of the URI could not be determined”. What am I doing wrong? If I create a Uri that looks like this: http://localhost:49723/images/myimage.jpg, it works just fine.

Why doesn’t just “images/myimage.jpg” work?

Answer 1

Relative paths to media in Silverlight are wacky so they can work the same (wacky) way that WPF paths do. Relative paths are relative to the XAP file, not the app root.

One trick is to move your XAP to the root of your website, so media paths will be relative to the root.

See my post on relative URI’s in Silverlight here.