C# – WPF Databinding TabItem Headers

cnetwpf

I am binding a ObservableCollection of data objects to my tab control item source. I have correctly figured out how to bind the controls within the tabitem that is generated, however I cannot figure out how to change the header property of the tabitem that is generated using the a property within the Observable Collection. Sorry if I am wording this incorrectly. Here is my XAML for the tabitem data template:

<DataTemplate x:Key="TabItemTemplate">
        <TreeView Height="461" VerticalAlignment="Top" 
            Width="625" ItemTemplateSelector="{StaticResource TreeviewDataSelector}" ItemsSource="{Binding}" />
</DataTemplate>

Best Answer

Create a Style for your TabItems that sets the Header property, and apply the style to TabControl.ItemContainerStyle

<TabControl>
    <TabControl.ItemContainerStyle>
        <Style TargetType="TabItem">
            <Setter Property="Header" Value="{Binding PathToYourProperty}"/>
        </Style>
    </TabControl.ItemContainerStyle>
</TabControl>

UPDATE

As of 8/1/2014, the article I linked to above is still active, but the blog hasn't been updated in a while. That makes me worry that eventually it might disappear, and with it, the advocated solution. I'm reproducing the content of the article here for posterity. The words belong solely to the blog owner at Sanity Free Coding.

Today I wanted to refactor some code that prohibited my application from running multiple instances of itself.

Previously I had use System.Diagnostics.Process to search for an instance of my myapp.exe in the process list. While this works, it brings on a lot of overhead, and I wanted something cleaner.

Knowing that I could use a mutex for this (but never having done it before) I set out to cut down my code and simplify my life.

In the class of my application main I created a static named Mutex:

static class Program
{
    static Mutex mutex = new Mutex(true, "{8F6F0AC4-B9A1-45fd-A8CF-72F04E6BDE8F}");
    [STAThread]
    ...
}

Having a named mutex allows us to stack synchronization across multiple threads and processes which is just the magic I'm looking for.

Mutex.WaitOne has an overload that specifies an amount of time for us to wait. Since we're not actually wanting to synchronizing our code (more just check if it is currently in use) we use the overload with two parameters: Mutex.WaitOne(Timespan timeout, bool exitContext). Wait one returns true if it is able to enter, and false if it wasn't. In this case, we don't want to wait at all; If our mutex is being used, skip it, and move on, so we pass in TimeSpan.Zero (wait 0 milliseconds), and set the exitContext to true so we can exit the synchronization context before we try to aquire a lock on it. Using this, we wrap our Application.Run code inside something like this:

static class Program
{
    static Mutex mutex = new Mutex(true, "{8F6F0AC4-B9A1-45fd-A8CF-72F04E6BDE8F}");
    [STAThread]
    static void Main() {
        if(mutex.WaitOne(TimeSpan.Zero, true)) {
            Application.EnableVisualStyles();
            Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
            Application.Run(new Form1());
            mutex.ReleaseMutex();
        } else {
            MessageBox.Show("only one instance at a time");
        }
    }
}

So, if our app is running, WaitOne will return false, and we'll get a message box.

Instead of showing a message box, I opted to utilize a little Win32 to notify my running instance that someone forgot that it was already running (by bringing itself to the top of all the other windows). To achieve this I used PostMessage to broadcast a custom message to every window (the custom message was registered with RegisterWindowMessage by my running application, which means only my application knows what it is) then my second instance exits. The running application instance would receive that notification and process it. In order to do that, I overrode WndProc in my main form and listened for my custom notification. When I received that notification I set the form's TopMost property to true to bring it up on top.

Here is what I ended up with:

Program.cs

static class Program
{
    static Mutex mutex = new Mutex(true, "{8F6F0AC4-B9A1-45fd-A8CF-72F04E6BDE8F}");
    [STAThread]
    static void Main() {
        if(mutex.WaitOne(TimeSpan.Zero, true)) {
            Application.EnableVisualStyles();
            Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
            Application.Run(new Form1());
            mutex.ReleaseMutex();
        } else {
            // send our Win32 message to make the currently running instance
            // jump on top of all the other windows
            NativeMethods.PostMessage(
                (IntPtr)NativeMethods.HWND_BROADCAST,
                NativeMethods.WM_SHOWME,
                IntPtr.Zero,
                IntPtr.Zero);
        }
    }
}

NativeMethods.cs

// this class just wraps some Win32 stuff that we're going to use
internal class NativeMethods
{
    public const int HWND_BROADCAST = 0xffff;
    public static readonly int WM_SHOWME = RegisterWindowMessage("WM_SHOWME");
    [DllImport("user32")]
    public static extern bool PostMessage(IntPtr hwnd, int msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam);
    [DllImport("user32")]
    public static extern int RegisterWindowMessage(string message);
}

Form1.cs (front side partial)

public partial class Form1 : Form
{
    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }
    protected override void WndProc(ref Message m)
    {
        if(m.Msg == NativeMethods.WM_SHOWME) {
            ShowMe();
        }
        base.WndProc(ref m);
    }
    private void ShowMe()
    {
        if(WindowState == FormWindowState.Minimized) {
            WindowState = FormWindowState.Normal;
        }
        // get our current "TopMost" value (ours will always be false though)
        bool top = TopMost;
        // make our form jump to the top of everything
        TopMost = true;
        // set it back to whatever it was
        TopMost = top;
    }
}

C# – Binding a WPF ComboBox to a custom list

You set the DisplayMemberPath and the SelectedValuePath to "Name", so I assume that you have a class PhoneBookEntry with a public property Name.

Have you set the DataContext to your ConnectionViewModel object?

I copied you code and made some minor modifications, and it seems to work fine. I can set the viewmodels PhoneBookEnty property and the selected item in the combobox changes, and I can change the selected item in the combobox and the view models PhoneBookEntry property is set correctly.

Here is my XAML content:

<Window x:Class="WpfApplication6.Window1"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        Title="Window1" Height="300" Width="300">
<Grid>
    <StackPanel>
        <Button Click="Button_Click">asdf</Button>
        <ComboBox ItemsSource="{Binding Path=PhonebookEntries}"
                  DisplayMemberPath="Name"
                  SelectedValuePath="Name"
                  SelectedValue="{Binding Path=PhonebookEntry}" />
    </StackPanel>
</Grid>
</Window>

And here is my code-behind:

namespace WpfApplication6
{

    /// <summary>
    /// Interaction logic for Window1.xaml
    /// </summary>
    public partial class Window1 : Window
    {
        public Window1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            ConnectionViewModel vm = new ConnectionViewModel();
            DataContext = vm;
        }

        private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            ((ConnectionViewModel)DataContext).PhonebookEntry = "test";
        }
    }

    public class PhoneBookEntry
    {
        public string Name { get; set; }

        public PhoneBookEntry(string name)
        {
            Name = name;
        }

        public override string ToString()
        {
            return Name;
        }
    }

    public class ConnectionViewModel : INotifyPropertyChanged
    {
        public ConnectionViewModel()
        {
            IList<PhoneBookEntry> list = new List<PhoneBookEntry>();
            list.Add(new PhoneBookEntry("test"));
            list.Add(new PhoneBookEntry("test2"));
            _phonebookEntries = new CollectionView(list);
        }

        private readonly CollectionView _phonebookEntries;
        private string _phonebookEntry;

        public CollectionView PhonebookEntries
        {
            get { return _phonebookEntries; }
        }

        public string PhonebookEntry
        {
            get { return _phonebookEntry; }
            set
            {
                if (_phonebookEntry == value) return;
                _phonebookEntry = value;
                OnPropertyChanged("PhonebookEntry");
            }
        }

        private void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName)
        {
            if (PropertyChanged != null)
                PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
        }
        public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
    }
}

Edit: Geoffs second example does not seem to work, which seems a bit odd to me. If I change the PhonebookEntries property on the ConnectionViewModel to be of type ReadOnlyCollection, the TwoWay binding of the SelectedValue property on the combobox works fine.

Maybe there is an issue with the CollectionView? I noticed a warning in the output console:

System.Windows.Data Warning: 50 : Using CollectionView directly is not fully supported. The basic features work, although with some inefficiencies, but advanced features may encounter known bugs. Consider using a derived class to avoid these problems.

Edit2 (.NET 4.5): The content of the DropDownList can be based on ToString() and not of DisplayMemberPath, while DisplayMemberPath specifies the member for the selected and displayed item only.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C# – the correct way to create a single-instance WPF application

UPDATE

C# – Binding a WPF ComboBox to a custom list

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