Silverlight Navigation Property not Binding in XAML - xaml

I am facing a peculiar problem. I have an edmx file loaded with some entities. Some of them has navigation properties. I am using a Domain service class to fetch the data. The linq query is as follows:
var result = from res in ObjectContext.Accounts.Include("Branch")
where res.FYAccountID == fyAccountID
select res;
return result.ToList();
When I am adding 'watch' to 'result.ToList()', the data is being shown. That is, instead of BranchID, Branch Name is shown.
But, in the XAML, the data is not being shown. The column 'Branch Name' is showing no values. The XAML is as follows,
<dxg:AgDataGrid.Columns>
<dxg:AgDataGridColumn FieldName="Branch.Name" AllowEditing="False" ReadOnly="True" HeaderContent="Branch Name" GroupIndex="1">
<dxg:AgDataGridColumn.DisplayTemplate>
<ControlTemplate>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding DataContext.Branch.Name}" />
</ControlTemplate>
</dxg:AgDataGridColumn.DisplayTemplate>
</dxg:AgDataGridColumn>
</dxg:AgDataGrid.Columns>
I have no idea why this is happening. Any suggestions?

Related

CompositeCollection containing an ICollectionView

I'm trying to implement a tab control, where each item comes from an ICollectionView of my viewmodel. Each tab page, for the items from the ICollectionView will be the same. However, I would like there to be an extra tab page for configuration options.
So an example tab header 'screenshot' might be:
tabA | tabB | tabC | config
on another instance, it could be
tabA | config
or
config
I can define the header for each item using ItemTemplateSelectors, and the content using the ContentTemplateSelectors. So that bit should be okay.
I'm having trouble with adding the config page item since I do not know where to add it. I thought I could set the tab's ItemsSource to be a CompositeCollection, where the final item is the config page object. I have failed to achieve this.
In the following example, I can view the tab headers being populated correctly according to the designer sample data which I have set up - I have not yet added the config page.
<controls:MetroTabControl ItemsSource="{Binding View}">
<controls:MetroTabControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Value.siteDisplayName}" />
</DataTemplate>
</controls:MetroTabControl.ItemTemplate>
<controls:MetroTabControl.ContentTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Value.siteComment}"/>
</DataTemplate>
</controls:MetroTabControl.ContentTemplate>
</controls:MetroTabControl>
As you see, I have set the ItemsSource to be {Binding View}. This "View" comes from my ViewModel and is an ICollectionView.
Ideally i'd be able to do some magic like:
<controls:MetroTabControl>
<controls:MetroTabControl.ItemsSource>
<CompositeCollection>
<CollectionContainer Collection="{Binding View}"/>
<SomeConfigPageObject/>
</CompositeCollection>
</controls:MetroTabControl.ItemsSource>
...snip...
</controls:MetroTabControl>
But the problem is that when I do the above, the designer preview of the control acts as if there are no items in the ItemsSource.
For reference, each item in the {Binding View} is a object which contains a Value property, the value property containing an object that contains, in this example, a siteDisplayName and siteComment.
For reference, the DataContext for the tab is defined the dockpanel that contains it, as follows.
<DockPanel DataContext="{Binding Source={StaticResource Configurator}}"
d:DataContext="{d:DesignInstance cfuid:ConfigSiteVMSampleData, IsDesignTimeCreatable=true}"
LastChildFill="True">
For reference, the Configurator is my viewmodel and is instantiated in the xaml as:
<UserControl.Resources>
<ResourceDictionary>
...snip...
<cfvmc:ConfigSiteVM x:Key="Configurator" />
...snip...
So, the actual question would be:
How do I add my "config page" at the end of the tab control? Preferably via using the above-hoped method of adding an extra config-page object on the CompositeCollection; however if this is not possible [1] i'm open for suggestions.
[1] I think it doesn't work because the {Binding View} is an ICollectionView and the CompositeCollection requires a "collection" and doesn't accept a "view"
Thank you.
Peter.
I decided to do it through code behind. This means that I do lose my ability to use the design-time data to preview my UI; but it works at run time.
So, in the xaml I have.
<controls:MetroTabControl Grid.Column="0" Grid.ColumnSpan="2"
Grid.Row="0" Grid.RowSpan="2"
ItemsSource="{Binding ElementName=ucMe, Path=TabSitesCollection}">
Where ucMe is the UserControl and TabSitesCollection is a
protected CollectionViewSource m_TabSitesCollectionViewSource;
protected CompositeCollection m_TabSitesComposites;
public ICollectionView TabSitesCollection
{
get { return m_TabSitesCollectionViewSource.View; }
}
That gets initialised in the constructor as follows
public ConfigSiteView()
{
m_TabSitesComposites = new CompositeCollection();
m_TabSitesCollectionViewSource = new CollectionViewSource();
m_TabSitesCollectionViewSource.Source = m_TabSitesComposites;
InitializeComponent();
}
Then, on the Loaded event I can do
m_TabSitesComposites.Add(new CollectionContainer() { Collection = GetModel.View });
m_TabSitesComposites.Add(new TabItem() { Header = "hi" });
m_TabSitesComposites.Add(new TabItem() { Header = "ho" });
This results in almost my desired UI
I now simply need to spiff up my settings tab item and i'm done.
For reference, the xaml designer does not have any preview data - Unless I change the xaml so that the preview loads up (which then breaks the actual execution)
It would have been nice to have it both work while running, and on preview, but I haven't figured out how to do that, and it's not a current priority.

Using x:Bind inside the GridView's ItemTemplate layout User Control in UWP

In the Universal Windows Platform API, how do I use x:Bind inside of a User Control (intended to be the layout for a GridView's ItemTemplate) to bind to instance properties of a GridView's ItemSource?
Background
I'm trying to re-create the layout found in Windows 10 stock apps like Sports, News, Money, etc.
I'm using a two GridViews for the main area of the app; one for "featured articles" (2 large photos w/ headlines) and one for all the other articles (smaller photos w/ headlines).
I'm able to bind to a data source that I supply in the code behind (a List where NewsItem is a POCO with a Image and Headline property) Here's the pertinent parts of the MainPage.xaml:
<Page ...
xmlns:data="using:NewsApp.Models" />
....
<GridView Name="FeaturedItems" Grid.Row="0">
<GridView.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate x:DataType="data:NewsItem">
<Grid Name="mainPanel" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Width="500" >
<Image Source="{x:Bind Image}" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" />
<TextBlock Text="{x:Bind Headline}" />
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
</GridView.ItemTemplate>
</GridView>
....
The Image and Headline bind just fine (even though they've not been styled correctly). However, instead I think I need to bind to a User Control to get the styling options I want, control over resizing esp. when using Visual State Triggers and to simplify the XAML in general (at least, this was the technique suggested to me.)
So, I added a new User Control to the project (FeaturedItemControl.xaml), and copied in the DataTemplate's child Grid:
<UserControl ... >
<Grid Name="mainPanel" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Width="500" >
<Image Source="{x:Bind Image}" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" />
<TextBlock Text="{x:Bind Headline}" />
</Grid>
</UserControl>
And then back in the MainPage.xaml, I change the DataTemplate to reference the new FeaturedItemControl:
<GridView Name="FeaturedItems" Grid.Row="0">
<GridView.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate x:DataType="data:NewsItem">
<local:FeaturedItemControl HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" />
</DataTemplate>
</GridView.ItemTemplate>
</GridView>
However, I get the error message for both Image and Headline properties: Invalid binding path 'Headline': Property 'Headline' can't be found on type 'FeaturedItemControl'.
I've tried a few things but am flailing just throwing code at the problem without understanding what I'm doing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your kind attention.
Using Depechie's answer, I formulated this little cheat cheat for posterity:
Do note that you MUST use this technique to utilize the VisualStateManager with items inside your data bound controls' (GridView, ListView) data templates.
1) Create a User Control.
2) Cut the content of the DataTemplate in your page and paste it into the User Control replacing the template's Grid.
3) Reference the User Control from inside the Data Template:
4) Modify the contents of the User Control changing x:Bind statements to utilize object.property notation:
<UserControl>
<StackPanel>
<Image Source="{x:Bind NewsItem.LeadPhoto}" />
<TextBlock Text="{x:Bind NewsItem.Headline}" />
<TextBlock Text="{x:Bind NewsItem.Subhead}" />
</StackPanel>
</UserControl>
5) Add this in the User Control's Code Behind:
public Models.NewsItem NewsItem { get { return this.DataContext as Models.NewsItem; } }
public ContactTemplate()
{
this.InitializeComponent();
this.DataContextChanged += (s, e) => Bindings.Update();
}
Well it's possible to use x:Bind in user controls, but you'll need to add some extra code behind.
I encountered the same problem in my project, you can see the result here : https://github.com/AppCreativity/Kliva/tree/master/src/Kliva/Controls
So what you need to do is, create a property in the code behind of your user control that points to the correct DataContext.
If you do that, you can use properties of that DataContext in the xaml of your control: for example:
Do note that in the constructor of your control you do need to add: DataContextChanged += (sender, args) => this.Bindings.Update(); because the datacontext will change depending on the page where your control is used!
Then on the page where you are placing this control, you'll also need to do the same to enable the x:bind to work.
You'll see this in my example on the MainPage.DeviceFamily-Mobile.xaml and MainPage.xaml.cs files.
Hope this helps.
x:Bind isn't really hierarchical like Binding/DataContext is. Additionally when you're not directly inside a DataTemplate (such as inside your user control) the object that x:Bind tries to use is 'this' rather than 'this.DataContext'. My current line of thinking on how to solve this sort of issue is to try not to use UserControls anywhere. Instead preferring DataTemplates contained within a ResourceDictionary. There are some pretty strong caveats to this approach though, you will for example crash the xaml compiler if you use x:Bind inside a data template that was created from the ResourceDictionary item template (add new item). you can find a pretty complete example here https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows-universal-samples/tree/master/Samples/XamlBind its important to note in the sample where they show the ResourceDictionary being used that its not actually just a ResourceDictionary.xaml its also a ResourceDictionary.xaml.cs (this is where the generated code from x:Bind ends up)
Another option is to add Headline and Image as properties on your user control and x:Bind them from the template, then inside the user control x:Bind as you are currently doing, but now the x:Bind generated path 'this.Headline' will exist. Unfortunately the order things are actually bound means that the x:Bind's you have inside your user control will have to be OneWay rather than the default OneTime. this is because x:Bind OneTime does the bind inside the InitializeComponent call, and any set of properties/DataContext stuff doesn't get done until after that has already run.
So to sum this up, you have two options, use data templates everywhere, or bind to properties that are directly on the user control.

Windows Phone ToolKit Map Error "Items must be empty before using Items Source"

I have a Windows XAML page which contents a map as below from the codebehind using my viewmodels constructor. I want to display multiple locations in Map with a pointer so I am using Windows Phone toolkit
<Controls:Map x:Name="AllyMap" Grid.Row="1" Center="{Binding GeoLocation}" ZoomLevel="12">
<toolkit:MapExtensions.Children>
<toolkit:MapItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding MapList}">
<toolkit:MapItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<toolkit:Pushpin GeoCoordinate="{Binding GeoCoordinate}" Content="{Binding Content}"/>
</DataTemplate>
</toolkit:MapItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</toolkit:MapItemsControl>
</toolkit:MapExtensions.Children>
</Controls:Map>
Now I am binding with MapList Itemsource as below.
atmLocationsMapView = new ATMLocationsMapViewModel();
this.DataContext = atmLocationsMapView;
ObservableCollection<DependencyObject> Mapchildren = MapExtensions.GetChildren(AllyMap);
MapItemsControl AllyMapObject;
AllyMapObject = null;
AllyMapObject = Mapchildren.FirstOrDefault(x => x.GetType() == typeof(MapItemsControl)) as MapItemsControl;
AllyMapObject.ItemsSource = atmLocationsMapView.MapList;
It is working fine with a first iteration. I have a feature to filter among the maps. When I am filtering it I am getting "Items must be empty before using Items Source" in the last line of the above code.
Can anybody please help me with this.

CollectionViewSource "Value does not fall within the expected range."

Why does this code produce the error in a Windows 8 XAML application?
Value does not fall within the expected range.
The XAML:
<SemanticZoom>
<SemanticZoom.ZoomedInView>
<ListView
Style="{StaticResource HorizontalListViewStyle}"
SelectionMode="None"
ScrollViewer.IsHorizontalScrollChainingEnabled="False"
ItemsSource="{Binding BoardItems}"
ItemContainerStyle="{StaticResource ZoomedOutListViewItemContainerStyle}"
...
The MVVM code:
ObservableCollection<WritingBoardModel> boards = new ObservableCollection<WritingBoardModel>();
... // Add item models to boards.
CollectionViewSource v = new CollectionViewSource()
{
Source = boards,
};
this.ViewModel.Add(BoardItemsViewModelKey, v);
If I skip the CollectionViewSource and directly add the boards instance to my view model, then it all works.
I think I need to use a CollectionViewSource in order to get some semantic zoom selection behaviour to work.
So, CollectionViewSources are weird and the way you have to bind to them is weird as well. To give you an example, in order to do it 'by the book' (the way the sample projects do), I've found it practically has to be a StaticResource as such:
<Page.Resource>
<CollectionViewSource Source="{Binding Whatev}"
x:Key="WhatevSource"/>
</Page.Resource>
<GridView ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource WhatevSource}}"/>
Notice that we're not setting the source directly to the CollectionViewSource, but we're setting a 'pathless' Binding, basically using the CollectionViewSource as a DataContext (just one way to think of it, not actually technically correct).
This is the only way I've been able to get it to work, though I believe you can technically in the codebehind set the ItemsSource directly to the View of the CollectionViewSource or something similar.
In your Listview add "StaticResource" and "Source"
<ListView ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource WhatevSource}}"/>
I needed to bind to the View property of the CollectionViewSource like this:
CollectionViewSource v = new CollectionViewSource()
{
IsSourceGrouped = false,
Source = boards,
};
this.ViewModel.Add(BoardItemsViewModelKey, v.View);
Mind you, this doesn't help with my two ListViews and keeping them in selection synch in a SemanticZoom.

Silverlight Find Control in Data Template

I have the following xaml code:
<dxb:BarButtonItem Name="btnPrev" Cursor="Hand" ItemClick="btnPrev_ItemClick">
<dxb:BarButtonItem.ContentTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Image x:Name="imgSkipLeft" Source="/ProjectTool;component/images/arrowleft.png" Height="16" Width="16">
<ToolTipService.ToolTip>
<TextBlock x:Name="txtBlockTip_Left"/>
</ToolTipService.ToolTip>
</Image>
</DataTemplate>
</dxb:BarButtonItem.ContentTemplate>
</dxb:BarButtonItem>
How can I find txtBlockTip_Left and modify the text
Rather that trying to find the TextBlock on the DataTemplate to change the text it would be better to set the text through a binding and then change the property that the Text property is bound to. The following resource has an example on how to use data binding within a DataTemplate: http://www.silverlight.net/learn/data-networking/binding/data-binding-to-controls-%28silverlight-quickstart%29
Using the VisualTreeHelperExtensions class and put a grid inside the data template and give it a name, in the example below the name is grdTemplate.
var bttn= btnPrev.ItemContainerGenerator.ContainerFromItem(btnPrev);
var dataTemplate = bttn.GetDescendantsOfType<Grid>().FirstOrDefault(g => g.Name == ("grdTemplate"));
var textBlocks= VisualTreeHelperExtensions.GetDescendantsOfType<TextBlock>(dataTemplate);
TextBlock txtBlockTip_left = textBlocks.ElementAt(0);