Bind WPF to a collection, and bind WPF to a collection.

Bind WPF to a collection, and bind WPF to a collection.

What is a set view?

The collection view is a layer at the top of the bound source set. You can use sorting, filtering, and grouping queries to navigate and display the source set without changing the basic source set itself. The set view also maintains a pointer to the current item in the set. If the source set implements the INotifyCollectionChanged interface, the changes caused by the CollectionChanged event will be propagated to the view.

If you bind a widget to a set, WPF binds it to its default view. This default view is shared by all bindings directly to the same set. Therefore, a bound control or code changes to the default view (such as sorting or changes to the current item pointer) it is reflected in all other bindings of the same set.

Demonstrate shared set view

Sometimes the ItemsControl control is used to display the object set. When one of the items is selected, its details are displayed, as shown in:

<Button Content = "{Binding}"/> <Button Content = "{Binding Path =/}"/> <Button Content = "{Binding Path =/Description}"/>

The following code defines a display template for the data bound to ContentControl.

<DataTemplate x:Key="DetailTemplate">            <Border Width="300" Height="100" Margin="20" BorderBrush="Aqua" BorderThickness="1" Padding="8">                <Grid>                    <Grid.RowDefinitions>                        <RowDefinition/>                        <RowDefinition/>                        <RowDefinition/>                    </Grid.RowDefinitions>                    <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>                        <ColumnDefinition/>                        <ColumnDefinition/>                    </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>                    <TextBlock Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Text="First Name:"/>                    <TextBlock Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding Path=FirstName}"/>                    <TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0" Text="Last Name:"/>                    <TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding Path=/LastName}"/>                    <TextBlock Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="0" Text="Home Town:"/>                    <TextBlock Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding Path=/HomeTown}"/>                </Grid>            </Border></DataTemplate>

The following code demonstrates binding to a collection

<ListBox Width="200" IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem="True" ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource MyFriends}}"/><ContentControl Content="{Binding Source={StaticResource MyFriends}}" ContentTemplate="{StaticResource DetailTemplate}"/>

Demonstrate how to create a set view

If you do not want to share a view, you can create a new view. The following Code demonstrates creating a static resource for a set view:

<Window.Resources><CollectionViewSource       Source="{Binding Source={x:Static Application.Current}, Path=AuctionItems}"         x:Key="listingDataView" /></Window.Resources>

CollectionViewSource is the proxy of the CollectionView class or the class derived from CollectionView. CollectionViewSource enables the XAML code to set common CollectionView attributes and pass these settings to the basic view. CollectionViewSource has a View that saves the actual View and a Source attribute that saves the Source set.

You can then bind the control to this view:

<ListBox Name="Master" Grid.Row="2" Grid.ColumnSpan="3" Margin="8"    ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource listingDataView}}"></ListBox>

Note:

CollectionViewSource is a proxy class, and the actual view saved in it is of the following type:

Source set type	Set view type	Description
IEnumerable	Internal types based on CollectionView	Unable to group items
IList	ListCollectionView	Fastest
IBindingList	BindingListCollectionView

The method to obtain the set view in code is as follows:

(ListCollectionView) view=(ListCollectionView)CollectionViewSource.GetDefaultView(rootElement.DataContext);