Question

I’ve got a gridview in my wpf application, the xaml of which looks like this:

   <ListView SelectionMode="Extended" ItemsSource="{Binding AllPartTypes}"
      local:DataGridService.SelectedItems="{Binding Path=SelectedPartTypes, Mode=TwoWay, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}">
        <ListView.View>
            <GridView>
                some columns...
            </GridView>
        </ListView.View>
   </ListView>

Here is the attached behavior I’m using to get the selected items:

public static readonly DependencyProperty SelectedItemsProperty = DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached(
            "SelectedItems",
            typeof(IList),
            typeof(DataGridService),
             new UIPropertyMetadata(new List<object>() as IList, OnSelectedItemsChanged));

        static SelectionChangedEventHandler GetSelectionChangedHandler(DependencyObject obj)
        {
            return (SelectionChangedEventHandler)obj.GetValue(SelectionChangedHandlerProperty);
        }
        static void SetSelectionChangedHandler(DependencyObject obj, SelectionChangedEventHandler value)
        {
            obj.SetValue(SelectionChangedHandlerProperty, value);
        }
        static readonly DependencyProperty SelectionChangedHandlerProperty =
            DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("SelectionChangedHandler", typeof(SelectionChangedEventHandler),
            typeof(DataGridService), new UIPropertyMetadata(null));

        //d is MultiSelector (d as ListBox not supported)
        static void OnSelectedItemsChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs args)
        {
            if (GetSelectionChangedHandler(d) != null)
                return;

            if (d is MultiSelector)//DataGrid
            {
                MultiSelector multiselector = d as MultiSelector;
                SelectionChangedEventHandler selectionchanged = null;
                foreach (var selected in (d as DataGrid).SelectedItems) // GetSelectedItems(d) as IList)
                    multiselector.SelectedItems.Add(selected);

                selectionchanged = (sender, e) =>
                {
                    SetSelectedItems(d, multiselector.SelectedItems);
                };
                SetSelectionChangedHandler(d, selectionchanged);
                multiselector.SelectionChanged += GetSelectionChangedHandler(d);
            }
            else if (d is ListBox)
            {
                ListBox listbox = d as ListBox;
                SelectionChangedEventHandler selectionchanged = null;

                selectionchanged = (sender, e) =>
                {
                    SetSelectedItems(d, listbox.SelectedItems);
                };
                SetSelectionChangedHandler(d, selectionchanged);
                listbox.SelectionChanged += GetSelectionChangedHandler(d);
            }
        }

        public static IList GetSelectedItems(DependencyObject obj)
        {
            return (IList)obj.GetValue(SelectedItemsProperty);
        }

        public static void SetSelectedItems(DependencyObject obj, IList value)
        {
            obj.SetValue(SelectedItemsProperty, value);
        }

This works fine for getting the selected items in the viewmodel when the user clicks a button or something. My problem is that, when the screen loads, I need to highlight the items which were previously selected. I unsuccessfully tried setting the ‘SelectedPartTypes’ property in the constructor of the VM, assuming that the two-way binding would take care of it. Is there an easy way to show which items are selected when the control loads?

Answer 1

Can’t you bind the IsSelected property in the ListBoxItem Style?

<Style TargetType="ListBoxItem">
    <Setter Property="IsSelected" Value="{Binding IsSelected}" />
</Style>

If your data objects don’t have a property to track selection, you may need to use a converter to return true if the current object is within SelectedPartTypes