Question

Ok, I’m no newbie at programming or C# as such, I just can’t seem to get WPF’s databinding straight in my head. My colleagues are raving about it (and yes, I will ask them as well) but right now I’m stumped.

Here’s what I’d like to do for starters:

As an example I’ve got a list of things like this:

List<Thing> thingList = Source.getList();

Now normally I’d go

foreach(Thing t in thingList)
{
    //add thing to combobox
}

But from what I can gather is that I can somehow not do this but use a databinding to populate the combobox for me.

What I can’t seem to get is where do I put the ‘thingList’? Do I make it a separate property somewhere? Where do I put that property?

I feel very stupid at the moment, as I’ve been struggling with this for a while now and I can’t find any examples out there that make me understand this – probably very simple – concept.

Anyone out there willing to help me or point me at some step-by-step guide I might have missed?

Answer 1

Use ObservableCollection<T> for databinding in WPF. Where T is your class. See example below

public class NameList : ObservableCollection<PersonName>
{
    public NameList() : base()
    {
        Add(new PersonName("A", "E"));
        Add(new PersonName("B", "F"));
        Add(new PersonName("C", "G"));
        Add(new PersonName("D", "H"));
    }
  }

  public class PersonName
  {
      private string firstName;
      private string lastName;

      public PersonName(string first, string last)
      {
          this.firstName = first;
          this.lastName = last;
      }

      public string FirstName
      {
          get { return firstName; }
          set { firstName = value; }
      }

      public string LastName
      {
          get { return lastName; }
          set { lastName = value; }
      }
  }

Now in XAML. Go to resource tag

<Window
  xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
  xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"

  xmlns:c="clr-namespace:SDKSample"

  x:Class="Sample.Window1"
  Width="400"
  Height="280"
  Title="MultiBinding Sample">

  <Window.Resources>
    <c:NameList x:Key="NameListData"/>
  </Window.Resources>


<ListBox Width="200"
         ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource NameListData}}"  // Name list data is declared in resource
         ItemTemplate="{StaticResource NameItemTemplate}"
         IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem="True"/>

xmnls:c will give you option to choose the class. Here you can choose c,d ,e x whatever but be sure it should be used earlier