Question

in my Silverlight 4 application, I want to use an AutoCompleteBox from the Silverlight Toolkit. I use this AutoCompleteBox in a listbox, which items are defined in a DataTemplate

<ListBox x:Name="ListBoxCharacteristics">
  <ListBox.ItemTemplate>
    <DataTemplate>
      <Grid Background="{StaticResource SolidBrushVeryLightGrey}">
        <sdk:AutoCompleteBox Text="{Binding Name, FallbackValue=[None], Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=true, ValidatesOnExceptions=true}" IsTextCompletionEnabled="True"/>
      </Grid>
    </DataTemplate>
  </ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>

To provide the suggested items to the AutoCompleteBox, I need to bind it on the ItemsSource property. The idea was to create the list in the constructor and then bind it to the AutoCompleteBox. But the AutoCompleteBox is just in the DataTemplate, so I cannot reference it directly.

Any idea, how to achieve that? I thought about something like “ItemsSource=”{Binding SuggestionList”} but that would mean I’d need to create this list as a Property for the class of the objects that I bind to the list, which would be a big overhead.

Thanks in advance,
Frank

Answer 1

I subscribed to the GotFocus-Event of the AutoCompleteBox and bind the list there. Thanks to Nathan and Shelby for putting my head towards the right direction!