Question

I start now to work with wpf (Coming from Windows Forms) and I want now to create a little tool for playing around with wpf.
I understand that there are Bindings and templates, and understand what they do, and know that I have to fill the Window.DataContext and can the bind to this but for my example I don’t get it all together, maybe someone can help me, to understand this better.

Models are

    class ViewModel
    {
        public List'Bank ListOfBanks { get; set; }
    }

    class Bank
    {
        public List'Account ListOfAccounts { get; set; }
    }

    class Account
    {
        public String Description { get; set; }
        public Decimal Money { get; set; }
    }

What I want to do, is to have a dynamic list of (some nice blue) rectangles (Count = Number of Banks in ListOfBanks property) and in this Rectangle should be a grid with two columns (Description and Money properties) which should have as much as rows like there are Accounts in the ListOfAccounts property from the bank model.

What I know is

    public MainWindow()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        this.DataContext = new ViewModel();
    }

I know this is not much. And I know how to bind the grid columns against the Account properties, thats all.

It would be great if someone can help me with this.

Kind regards

Answer 1

A simple way is to use a nested ItemsCollection:

<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding ListOfBanks}">
    <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
        <DataTemplate>
        <StackPanel>
            <TextBlock Text="{Binding ListOfAccounts.Count,StringFormat='Number of Accounts: {0}'}" />
            <ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding ListOfAccounts}">
                <DataTemplate>
                    <Grid>
                        <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                            <ColumnDefinition />
                            <ColumnDefinition />
                        </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                        <TextBlock Text="{Binding Description}" />
                        <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding Money,StringFormat='{}{0:C}'}" />
                    </Grid>
                </DataTemplate>
            </ItemsControl>
        </StackPanel>
        </DataTemplate>
    </ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>

ItemsControl is a basic repeating control — if you want bells and whistles use ListBox (item selection) or DataGrid (sorting, grouping, automatic columns, etc).