UserControl Databinding

mikla521

I give up, can't find any good information about this anywhere :( I have a UserControl with 6 textboxes. I have a quite complex datastructure from where I want to fill these textboxes. The datastructure contains several sets of "String[6]" but I can't figure out how to bind it :(

public partial class MyAttBox : UserControl
{
// 6 of these with different names
public static DependencyProperty LowChRXProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("LowChRX", typeof(String), typeof(MyAttBox));
public String LowChRX
{
get { return (String)GetValue(LowChRXProperty); }
set { SetValue(LowChRXProperty, value); }
}
}

"main" XAML:

<AttBox:MyAttBox Header="GSM 850" x:Name="AttBox_GSM850" />

my data is stored like:

public class ABC
{
private Dictionary<String, List<String>> m_values = new Dictionary<String, List<String>>();

    public Dictionary<String, List<String>> Values
    {
        get { return m\_values; }
        set { m\_values = value; }
    }

What I want to is to select a Key in my code and connect the Values to the texboxes in my UC. How?

Mark Salsbery

I'm confused...

mikla521 wrote:

The datastructure contains several sets of "String[6]" but I can't figure out how to bind it

Then why didn't you show these "sets of "String[6]""?? :) The 6 textboxes....you want to bind those by index to 6 strings in a collection, right? And that collection of 6 strings - where is that? Is that the List<> in each dictionary entry?

Mark Salsbery Microsoft MVP - Visual C++ :java:

mikla521

Ok, will try refine myself here :)

public class CouplerDB
{
private Dictionary<String, Coupler> m_products;
....
}

public class Coupler
{
private Dictionary<String, Attenuation> m_attenuations
....
}

public class Attenuation
{
private Dictionary<Band, List<String>> m_values = new Dictionary<Band, List<String>>();

I want my user control textboxes to display the values from the List<String> but it's not absolute necessary to have that list, just a place to store 6 different value. Scenario: In a listbox I can select a product. Radiobuttons to select Coupler. Then I have a UserControl for each Band which I want to display the corresponding Strings. Clear? :-D *Sigh* If I change Coupler I need to change the binding. Another way to do it is to hardcode everything, but then I need almost 60 UserControls with a total of 360 Textboxes! My way I "only" need maximum 10 UserControls...

Mark Salsbery

mikla521 wrote:

Clear?

No. ;P

mikla521 wrote:

Radiobuttons to select Coupler

Select a coupler from where? You only show one coupler per product in the m_products dictionary. How do you know how many radiobuttons there should be? Are any of these dictionaries fixed count? Which ones? It loks on the outside like a (relatively) simple 3-level master-detatil scenario. I just want to try to put together a sample for you and it would be easiest if I know and understand the data you're working with :)

Mark Salsbery Microsoft MVP - Visual C++ :java:

mikla521

I will try again :) A listbox where I can select product, nothing strange here. Then a Tab with 6 radiobuttons to select Coupler and in that same Tab I have my UserControls. So when I change selectedItem in my listbox OR change radiobutton, I need to update my UserControls with new data. ONE of the UserControls in my XAML looks like:

<AttBox:MyAttBox Header="GSM 850" x:Name="AttBox_GSM850"/>

In my code I have (don't care about the private members now, let's say they are public :) ):

public CouplerDB myDB = new CouplerDB

When I want to change in the UC I get the values from:

Product p = (Product)productListbox.SelectedItem;
myDB.m_products[p.ProductName].m_attenuations["Cable"].Values[Band.GSM850][0]
myDB.m_products[p.ProductName].m_attenuations["Cable"].Values[Band.GSM850][1]...

so I can set

AttBox_GSM850.LowChRX = myDB.m_products[p.ProductName].m_attenuations["Cable"].Values[Band.GSM850][0];

But to simplify things here... If I have ONE and only ONE UC. I want a Dictionary where each KEY selects, i.e a List<String> to populate the UC listboxes, also want TwoWayBinding. Ehh..I have a testproject, where can I post it? :)

mikla521

Been trying around a little... If my data object looks like:

public class MyData : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
private String m_LowChRX;
private String m_LowChTX;

public String LowChRX
{
get { return m_LowChRX; }
set { m_LowChRX = value; OnPropertyChanged("LowChRX"); }
}
public String LowChTX
{
get { return m_LowChTX; }
set { m_LowChTX = value; OnPropertyChanged("LowChTX"); }
}...

In my code I can set the data values in

MyData myData1;

And use binding like this

binding = new Binding("LowChRX");
binding.Source = myData1;
myBox.tbLowChRX.SetBinding(TextBox.TextProperty, binding);

where myBox is my UC. And, again, I have 6 textboxes in myBox. Then I have to repeat that binding for each textbox. And here is the point where I change from myData1 to other data objects. If I have a List<String> in my UC, how do I bind it? When then TextBox is a Control, maybe I have to make a custom control inside which hold my List? So I can bind like:

myBox.CustomControl.SetBinding(Property, binding)

Am I on the right track now? :)

Gideon Engelberth

WPF gives you a couple options here. I'll just show them in XAML and let you decide what you want and translate to code-behind if you want. All of these examples assume you have an object of type ABC as the DataContext. Option A - Bind to a specific list with a known key:

Option B - Bind to the entire list with another set of controls for the current item:

<ListBox Name="lstValues" ItemsSource="{Binding Values}">
    <ListBox.ItemTemplate>
        <DataTemplate>
            <TextBlock Text="{Binding Key}" />
        </DataTemplate>
    </ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>

<StackPanel Grid.Row="1" ItemsSource="{Binding SelectedItem.Value, ElementName=lstValues}">
    <!-- other controls here -->            
</StackPanel>

</Grid>

Kunal Chowdhury IN

You can use Binding with the DependencyProperty. You can get information on how to implement the DependencyProperty in this blog: How to Implement a DependencyProperty? Try with that. It will work.