Binding in two way mode from a XML file to a combobox in usercontrol [modified] - WPF Discussion Boards

To confirm, for the purpose of developing using sql server 2008 express, visual studio 2010 express and windows phone 7, then it is ok to have windows 7 home edition 64 bit?

Thanks

arkiboys wrote:
for the purpose of developing using sql server 2008 express, visual studio 2010 express and windows phone 7

This is not a software issue, you can only use 64-bit software on a PC that has 64 bit hardware. If your PC is not a 64-bit machine then you cannot install 64-bit software on it.

Unrequited desire is character building. OriginalGriff

The machine is a 64bit hardware... and comes with windows 7 home edition 64bit.
for the purpose of developing using sql server 2008 express, visual studio 2010 express and windows phone 7 is the home edition ok for my purposes?
Thank you

Yes

Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads

My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility

Thanks

arkiboys wrote:
is the home edition ok for my purposes?

Short answer: Yes.
But you may wish to check here[^] also.

Unrequited desire is character building. OriginalGriff

Thanks

Hello everyone,

I am making a sample application test with WPF creating some UserControls to increase maintainability.

In this way I created a toolbar usercontrol where I put a combobox and I created a dependency property, since it's the best tool for binding than datacontext when having more than one binding, and in main xaml I called a xmldataprovider loading a xml file to fill the combo box in the UserControl.

in the toolbar's usercontrol xaml file I put

<ComboBox ItemsSource="{Binding Path=epToolbarItemSource, RelativeSource={RelativeSource AncestorType={x:Type UserControl}}}" DisplayMemberPath="shortname" />

In the toolbar's usercontrol xaml.cs file I declared the dependency property as:

public static DependencyProperty ItemSourceToolbarProperty;

static epToolbar()
{
 epToolbar.ItemSourceToolbarProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("epToolbarItemSource", typeof(IEnumerable), 
         typeof(epToolbar));        
}

public IEnumerable ItemSourceToolbar
{
 get { return (IEnumerable)GetValue(epToolbar.ItemSourceToolbarProperty); }
 set { SetValue(epToolbar.ItemSourceToolbarProperty, value); }
}

In the Window.xaml file I declared the xmldataprovider as:

<XmlDataProvider x:Key="dpOperators" XPath="operators" Source="/Data/Operators.xml" IsInitialLoadEnabled="True" />

and I declared the usercontrol setting the dependency property I thought it was correctly declared, epToolbarItemSource:

<uc:epToolbar DockPanel.Dock="Top" epToolbarItemSource="{Binding Source=dpOperators, Mode=TwoWay}" />

In the examples found about Dependency Properties I always read the dependency property can be called as a property attribute when calling the usercontrol but in this case it says an error like: "The property 'epToolbarItemSource' was not found in type 'epToolbar'."

So I am asking here what's the right syntax to bind the content of xml file to the combo in the way I add new operators in the xmldataprovider so they would be inserted in xml file and refreshed the combo box?

Thanks in advance to all

Cheers, Luigi

modified on Sunday, August 14, 2011 12:48 PM

Ok,Sort of new to WPF and MVVM I have a function to populate a treeview control on a User Control. I placed the code to populate the treeview list inside the code portion of the User Control. I need to update this treeview list by calling the function from inside another hosted User Control. How do I do this?

I have added #include Manufactured_Housing_Manager which is the projects namespace I've even tried #using tv = Manufactured_Housing_Manager.Treeview, which was the name of the usercontrol.

How can I call the update from another User Control

**NEVER** build a TreeView by hand. ESPECIALLY in WPF/MVVM. You should build a simple nested collection and then use a HierarchicalDataTemplate to define how to populate the TreeView from that collection. The collection(s) should implement INotifyCollectionChanged and the objects inside of the collection(s) should implement INotifyPropertyChanged. Then just simply set the ItemsSource of the TreeView to point to your collection and sit back and watch the magic happen. If you do this, any changes you make to your collection(s) and item(s) will auto-magically be reflected in the UI.

How do I populate that type of Treeview? I've created a listview such like you said for my MRU list I need to populate the Treeview with sorted data by Alphabetic base letter A-Z then Lastname, Firstname middle intial. I'm already using a collection:

C#

using System;
using System.Collections.ObjectModel;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.ComponentModel;

namespace Manufactured_Housing_Manager
{
    public class tvIndex
    {
        private string _index;
        public string Index
        {
            get { return _index; }
            set { _index = value; }
        }

        private ObservableCollection<Contact> _contacts;
        public ObservableCollection<Contact> Contacts
        {
            get
            {
                if (_contacts == null)
                    _contacts = new ObservableCollection<Contact>();

                return _contacts;
            }
        }

        public tvIndex()
        {
        }

        public tvIndex(
            string indexx,
            ObservableCollection<Contact> contacts)
        {
            _index = indexx;
            _contacts = contacts;
        }
    }
}

C#

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace Manufactured_Housing_Manager
{
    public class Contact
    {
        private string _name;
        private int _id;
        public string Name
        {
            get { return _name; }
            set { _name = value; }
        }

        public int Id
        {
            get { return _id; }
            set { _id = value; }
        }

        public Contact()
        {
        }

        public Contact(string name, int id)
        {
            _name = name;
            _id = id;
        }
    }
}

My Xaml is this:

HTML

<UserControl x:Class="Manufactured_Housing_Manager.Outlookbar"
             xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
             xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" 
             xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
             xmlns:local="clr-namespace:Manufactured_Housing_Manager"
             mc:Ignorable="d" 
             >
    <UserControl.Resources>
        <Style x:Key="TreeViewStyle1" TargetType="{x:Type TreeView}">
            <Setter Property="Background" Value="{DynamicResource {x:Static SystemColors.WindowBrushKey}}"/>
            <Setter Property="BorderBrush" Value="{StaticResource ListBorder}"/>
            <Setter Property="BorderThickness" Value="0"/>
            <Setter Property="Padding" Value="0"/>
            <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{DynamicResource {x:Static SystemColors.ControlTextBrushKey}}"/>
            <Setter Property="ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollBarVisibility" Value="Auto"/>
            <Setter Property="ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility" Value="Auto"/>
            <Setter Property="ScrollViewer.PanningMode" Value="Both"/>
            <Setter Property="Stylus.IsFlicksEnabled" Value="False"/>
            <Setter Property="VerticalContentAlignment" Value="Center"/>
            <Setter Property="Template">
                <Setter.Value>
                    <ControlTemplate TargetType="{x:Type TreeView}">
                        <Border x:Name="Bd" BorderBrush="{TemplateBinding BorderBrush}" BorderThickness="{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}" SnapsToDevicePixels="true">
                            <ScrollViewer x:Name="_tv_scrollviewer_" Background="{TemplateBinding Background}" CanContentScroll="True" Focusable="false" HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="{TemplateBinding ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollBarVisibility}" Padding="{TemplateBinding Padding}" SnapsToDevicePixels="{TemplateBinding SnapsToDevicePixels}" VerticalScrollBarVisibility="{TemplateBinding ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility}" Template="{DynamicResource ScrollViewerControlTemplate1}" >
                                <ItemsPresenter ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Visible" ScrollViewer.CanContentScroll="True"/>
                            </ScrollViewer>
                        </Border>
                        <ControlTemplate.Triggers>
                            <Trigger Property="IsEnabled" Value="false">
                                <Setter Property="Background" TargetName="Bd" Value="{DynamicResource {x:Static SystemColors.ControlBrushKey}}"/>
                            </Trigger>
                            <Trigger Property="VirtualizingStackPanel.IsVirtualizing" Value="true">
                                <Setter Property="CanContentScroll" TargetName="_tv_scrollviewer_" Value="true"/>
                            </Trigger>
                        </ControlTemplate.Triggers>
                    </ControlTemplate>
                </Setter.Value>
            </Setter>
            <Style.Triggers>
                <Trigger Property="VirtualizingStackPanel.IsVirtualizing" Value="true">
                    <Setter Property="ItemsPanel">
                        <Setter.Value>
                            <ItemsPanelTemplate>
                                <VirtualizingStackPanel/>
                            </ItemsPanelTemplate>
                        </Setter.Value>
                    </Setter>
                </Trigger>
            </Style.Triggers>
        </Style>

        <!--========================== OutlookBar Treeview Style ===========================-->


        <HierarchicalDataTemplate x:Key="ChildTemplate">
            <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
                <Image x:Name="img2" Width="16"	Height="16"	Stretch="Fill" Source="Images\closedfolder16.png" />
                <TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Name}" Margin="5,0" ToolTip="{Binding Path=Name}"/>
            </StackPanel>
        </HierarchicalDataTemplate>
        <HierarchicalDataTemplate x:Key="MyTreeViewStyle"
                                  ItemsSource="{Binding Path=Contacts}"
                                  ItemTemplate="{StaticResource ChildTemplate}">
            <!-- Display the Index by showing it's Index string -->
            <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
                <Image x:Name="img" Width="16" Height="16" Stretch="Fill" Source="Images\closedfolder16.png" />
                <TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Index}" Margin="5,0" ToolTip="{Binding Path=Index}"/>
            </StackPanel>
        </HierarchicalDataTemplate>
    </UserControl.Resources>

    <DockPanel>
        <Grid>
            <Border Margin="5,5,0,0" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" BorderThickness="1" BorderBrush="lightGray" CornerRadius="3" Height="24" Width="Auto" VerticalAlignment="Top" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch">
                <TextBlock Margin ="5,0" Name="tbOutlookBar" VerticalAlignment="Center" Text="Contacts" Foreground="#FF355AAF" FontSize="14" />
            </Border>
            <Border Name="OutlookBarInfo" DockPanel.Dock="Left" Margin="5,28,0,0" Background="White" Height="24" Width="Auto" VerticalAlignment="Top" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" BorderThickness="1" BorderBrush="lightGray" CornerRadius="3">
                <TextBlock Margin ="5,0" Name="tbOutlookBarInfo" VerticalAlignment="Center" Text=" " Foreground="Black" FontSize="12" />
            </Border>
            <TabControl Margin="5,52,0,5" Grid.RowSpan="2" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" Width="Auto" Height="Auto" TabStripPlacement="Bottom" Style="{DynamicResource OutlookTabControlStyle}" >
                <TabItem Height="24" Style="{DynamicResource OutlookTabItemStyle}" Background="{DynamicResource OutlookButtonBackground}" Foreground="{DynamicResource OutlookButtonForeground}" ToolTip="Contacts">
                    <!--GotFocus="TabItemContacts_GotFocus">-->
                    <TabItem.Header>
                        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
                            <Image Name="img" Source="Images/contact16.png" Stretch="Fill" Height="16" Width="16" Margin="0,3" />
                            <TextBlock Text="Contacts" Margin="3,0,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
                        </StackPanel>
                    </TabItem.Header>
                    <Grid>
                        <TreeView ItemsSource="{x:Static local:RibbonControl.contactdata}" x:Name="MyTreeView" ItemTemplate="{StaticResource MyTreeViewStyle}" ScrollViewer.CanContentScroll="True" Style="{DynamicResource TreeViewStyle1}">
                            <!-- TreeViewItem.Selected="MyTreeView_Selected">-->
                            <TreeView.ItemContainerStyle>
                                <Style TargetType="{x:Type TreeViewItem}">
                                    <Setter Property="IsExpanded" Value="True" />
                                </Style>
                            </TreeView.ItemContainerStyle>
                        </TreeView>
                    </Grid>
                </TabItem>
                <TabItem Grid.ColumnSpan="2" Height="24" Style="{DynamicResource OutlookTabItemStyle}" Background="{DynamicResource OutlookButtonBackground}" Foreground="{DynamicResource OutlookButtonForeground}" ToolTip="Calendar">
                    <!-- GotFocus="TabItemCalendar_GotFocus" LostFocus="TabItem_LostFocus">-->
                    <TabItem.Header>
                        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
                            <Image Name="img2" Source="Images/calendar16.png" Stretch="Fill" Height="16" Width="16"  Margin="0,3" />
                            <TextBlock Text="Calendar" Margin="3,0,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
                        </StackPanel>
                    </TabItem.Header>
                    <Grid>
                        <!--<Calendar Name="calendar1" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" d:LayoutOverrides="GridBox" Height="170" VerticalAlignment="Top" />-->
                    </Grid>
                </TabItem>
            </TabControl>
        </Grid>
    </DockPanel>
</UserControl>

almost forgot the code inside the User Control:

C#

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Data;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Data;
using System.Windows.Documents;
using System.Collections.ObjectModel;
using System.Windows.Input;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Media.Imaging;
using System.Windows.Navigation;
using System.Windows.Shapes;
using Manufactured_Housing_Manager;

namespace Manufactured_Housing_Manager
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Interaction logic for Outlookbar.xaml
    /// </summary>
    public partial class Outlookbar : UserControl
    {
        public DataTable dtContacts = new DataTable();
        public DataTable dtDealerPacks = new DataTable();
        public DataTable dtServices = new DataTable();
        public DataRow rowContacts;
        public DataRow rowDealerPacks;
        public DataRow rowServices;
        public string filename;
        public string connectionString;
        static public ObservableCollection<Contact> contactdata;

        public Outlookbar()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        #region Update TreeView

        // TreeView Control
        private void updateTreeview()
        {
            //MyTreeView.Items.Clear();

            if (Properties.Settings.Default.dbOpen)
            {
                //add letters sort nodes
                for (int i = System.Convert.ToInt32('A'); i <= System.Convert.ToInt32('Z'); i++)
                {
                    MyTreeView.Items.Add(new tvIndex(Convert.ToString((char)(i)), contactdata)); //set text

                    //add customers                    
                    contactdata = new ObservableCollection<Contact>();
                    string sContactsName = null;
                    foreach (DataRow rowContacts in Properties.Settings.Default.DtContacts.Rows)
                    {
                        sContactsName = string.Concat(rowContacts["LastName"].ToString(), ", ", rowContacts["FirstName"].ToString());

                        if (!(System.Convert.IsDBNull(rowContacts["MiddleInitial"].ToString())))
                        {
                            if (!(rowContacts["MiddleInitial"].ToString() == ""))
                                sContactsName = string.Concat(sContactsName, " ", rowContacts["MiddleInitial"].ToString(), ".");
                        }

                        if (left(sContactsName, 1) == Convert.ToString((char)(i + 1)))
                        {
                            string temp = rowContacts["ContactID"].ToString();
                            contactdata.Add(new Contact(sContactsName, Convert.ToInt32(temp)));
                        }
                    }
                }

                if (Properties.Settings.Default.DtContacts.Rows.Count < 2)
                {
                    tbOutlookBarInfo.Text = Properties.Settings.Default.DtContacts.Rows.Count + " Contact";
                    tbOutlookBarInfo.ToolTip = Properties.Settings.Default.DtContacts.Rows.Count + " Contact";
                }
                else
                {
                    tbOutlookBarInfo.Text = Properties.Settings.Default.DtContacts.Rows.Count + " Contacts";
                    tbOutlookBarInfo.ToolTip = Properties.Settings.Default.DtContacts.Rows.Count + " Contacts";
                }
            }
        }

        #endregion
    }
}

modified on Friday, August 12, 2011 1:36 PM

You mean, you want your tree to look like:

A
ALastName, AFirstName
ALastName2, AFirstName2
B
BLastName, BFirstName
BLastName2, BFirstName

?

Yeah I already have this doing it but not in this wpf version. I was hosting everything inside one form and had several classes. Now I'm trying to properly create user controls for the ribbon the treeview/outlook bar, statusbar, and tabs which will display records. Basically I'm trying to improve my coding techniques and more correctly adapt to MVVM style. Old dog trying to learn new tricks.

Haha... yeah, MVVM is a learning curve on top of the WPF learning curve. Trust me though, I come from the MFC / C++ world and did a bit of time in the C# / Winforms world... the WPF / MVVM way is by far the best. It results in *really* clean code.

Anyways...

Your data structure should kind of try to closely mirror how you want it in the tree. Obviously we aren't going to be modifying the alphabet any time soon, so we have 26 root nodes. I'd probably try to store it in something like:

public class ContactCollection : ObservableCollection<Contact>

The reason you need to do that is because XAML doesn't work well with generics.

SortedDictionary<char, ContactCollection>

so you'll populate the sorted dictionary with keys 'A' through 'Z' and new up an ContactCollection as the value. Then populate each ContactCollection with the names matching that letter. There is a little known trick to sort the ObservableCollections after you populate them. You derive a class from ObservableCollection<t> and add a method like this:

C#

public void Sort(Comparison<T> comparison)
{
    ((List<T>)Items).Sort(comparison);
    OnCollectionChanged(new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Reset));
}

Then your HierachialDataTemplate would just specify Key as the top level display binding and Values as the ItemsSource. Another HierachialDataTemplate would be typed for Contact and have the name as the display value.

This all might not make sense now, but once you get going, it will.

Kind of understand some but still confused. Below is the class I'm constructing

C#

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Collections.ObjectModel;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace Manufactured_Housing_Manager
{
     public class ContactCollection : ObservableCollection<Contact>
    {
        #region left, right, mid string functions

        public static string left(string param, int length)
        {
            //we start at 0 since we want to get the characters starting from the
            //left and with the specified length and assign it to a variable
            string result = param.Substring(0, length);
            //return the result of the operation
            return result;
        }

        public static string mid(string param, int startIndex, int length)
        {
            //start at the specified index in the string and get the number of
            //characters depending on the length and assign it to a variable
            string result = param.Substring(startIndex, length);
            //return the result of the operation
            return result;
        }

        public static string right(string param, int length)
        {
            //start at the index based on the length of the string minus
            //the specified length and assign it a variable
            string result = param.Substring(param.Length - length, length);
            //return the result of the operation
            return result;
        }

        #endregion

         public ContactCollection() : base()
         {
             Add(new Contact("Davis, Adam T.", 0));
             Add(new Contact("Zappa, Frank M.", 1));
             Add(new Contact("Henry, Victor", 2));
             Add(new Contact("Vern, Jules W.", 3));
         }

    }

     public class Contact
     {
         private string _name;
         private int _id;
         public string Name
         {
             get { return _name; }
             set { _name = value; }
         }

         public int Id
         {
             get { return _id; }
             set { _id = value; }
         }

         public Contact()
         {
         }

         public Contact(string name, int id)
         {
             _name = name;
             _id = id;
         }
     }
}

Thing is I need to open my OLEDB Database to populate my dataset then I populate ObservableCollection<contact> with the names from each Contact in my database. I used the following code in the past to populate the tree and concate the names into one name information field I used to display.

C#

//add letters sort nodes
for (int i = System.Convert.ToInt32('A'); i <= System.Convert.ToInt32('Z'); i++)
{
    MyTreeView.Items.Add(new tvIndex(Convert.ToString((char)(i)), contactdata)); //set text

    //add customers
    contactdata = new ObservableCollection<Contact>();
    string sContactsName = null;
    foreach (DataRow rowContacts in Properties.Settings.Default.DtContacts.Rows)
    {
        sContactsName = string.Concat(rowContacts["LastName"].ToString(), ", ", rowContacts["FirstName"].ToString());

        if (!(System.Convert.IsDBNull(rowContacts["MiddleInitial"].ToString())))
        {
            if (!(rowContacts["MiddleInitial"].ToString() == ""))
                sContactsName = string.Concat(sContactsName, " ", rowContacts["MiddleInitial"].ToString(), ".");
        }

        if (left(sContactsName, 1) == Convert.ToString((char)(i + 1)))
        {
            string temp = rowContacts["ContactID"].ToString();
            contactdata.Add(new Contact(sContactsName, Convert.ToInt32(temp)));
        }
    }

In this way I simply added the base A-Z to the parent Node in the Treeview and then bound childnodes to the contactdata name and assigned the id to pull up the record.

My confusion stems from trying to implement the proper way of doing the same thing in this new public class based on ContactCollection : ObservableCollection<contact>.

As you can see I added a base which can manually add names and id's to the Collection. This gives me a certain amount of sample data to see if binding is correct. I should place my code here that imports my Dataset information, Concats the Last,First,MI into one name value and gives the id.

modified on Friday, August 12, 2011 4:35 PM

Ok, so your ROOT object is going to be a:

SortedDictionary<char, ContactCollection>

So you would do something like:

C#

SortedDictionary<char, ContactCollection> dict = new SortedDictionary<char, ContactCollection>();

for (int i = System.Convert.ToInt32('A'); i <= System.Convert.ToInt32('Z'); i++)
{
  ContactCollection cc = new ContactCollection();

  // add contacts with the last name starting with i to cc here
  foreach (...)
  {
  }

  dict.Add(System.Convert.ToChar(i), cc);
}

tv.ItemsSource = dict;

Your contact object also needs to implement INotifyPropertyChanged for this all to work correctly.

Report what your tree looks like on the screen and we can tweak the HierarchialDataTemplate to display the right content.

One last problem I think. How do I get tv.ItemsSource = dict;
to work. I get, An object reference is required for the non-static field, method, or property 'Manufactured_Housing_Manager.Outlookbar.MyTreeView'

I tried adding this to the tope of this class

using tv = Manufactured_Housing_Manager.Outlookbar;

also this is my xaml for binding

it's inside Outlookbar.xaml

HTML

<HierarchicalDataTemplate x:Key="ChildTemplate">
    <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
        <Image x:Name="img2" Width="16"  Height="16" Stretch="Fill" Source="Images\closedfolder16.png" />
        <TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Name}" Margin="5,0" ToolTip="{Binding Path=Name}"/>
    </StackPanel>
</HierarchicalDataTemplate>
<HierarchicalDataTemplate x:Key="MyTreeViewStyle"
                          ItemsSource="{Binding Path=Contact}"
                          ItemTemplate="{StaticResource ChildTemplate}">
    <!-- Display the Index by showing it's Index string -->
    <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
        <Image x:Name="img" Width="16" Height="16" Stretch="Fill" Source="Images\closedfolder16.png" />
        <TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Index}" Margin="5,0" ToolTip="{Binding Path=Index}"/>
    </StackPanel>
</HierarchicalDataTemplate>

modified on Friday, August 12, 2011 7:49 PM

I know I'm over thinking this. The whole Observable Collections thing is new to me. I'm confusing myself and getting discouraged. I created a hierarchical observable collection that worked before. but populating the class with data from my user selected OLE database was done outside the class. I can vaguely see how this is supposed to work , I'm just not visualizing the code to make it happen very well.

All of you help has been and is appreciated.

I was just showing you what property you needed to set. In proper MVVM, you don't set the ItemsSource explicitly. You just return it from your ViewModel.

public SortedDictionary<char, observablecollection<contact="">> ItemsSource
{
get
{
if (_dict == null)
{
// create the dictionary and observable collections here and
// store in _dict
}

return _dict;
}

then your XAML's DataContext should point to your ViewModel.

Then you can just do:

<treeview itemssource="{Binding" itemssource}="">

and your tree should be built for you.

You were talking about my needing to implement INotifyPropertyChanged, I've tried to use this before but I never was able to get it to work properly. How do you implement it and respond to it? I know that if I add or remove an item from my collection it will flag the INotifyPropertyChanged event. and I know that if I setup a function to respond to this it will run the code within it. But how do I use it actually?

If you use ObservableCollection, that already implements INotifyCOLLECTIONChanged for you. That will automatically update the UI when an item is added or removed. Your Contact object needs to implement INotifyPROPERTYChanged so the UI knows when a property of the contact object has changed. See this for a basic example: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229614.aspx[^].

For both INotifyPropertyChanged and INotifyCollectionChanged, you do not need to do anything else beyond implement the interfaces. When you bind to stuff, the WPF infrastructure will subscribe to the necessary events and do its thing for you.

This is what I came up with

C#

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Collections.ObjectModel;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace Manufactured_Housing_Manager
{
    public class Contact : INotifyPropertyChanged
    {
        private string _name = String.Empty;
        private int _id = 0;

        public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
        private void NotifyPropertyChanged(String info)
        {
            if (PropertyChanged != null)
            {
                PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(info));
            }
        }  

        public string Name
        {
            get { return this._name; }

            set
            {
                if (value != this._name)
                {
                    this._name = value;
                    NotifyPropertyChanged("Name");
                }
            }  
        }

        public int Id
        {
            get { return this._id; }
            
            set
            {
                if (value != this._id)
                {
                    this._id = value;
                    NotifyPropertyChanged("Id");
                }
            }  
        }

        public Contact()
        {
        }

        public Contact(string name, int id)
        {
            _name = name;
            _id = id;
        }
    } 
}

My Xaml code is

HTML

<HierarchicalDataTemplate x:Key="ChildTemplate">
    <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
        <Image x:Name="img2" Width="16"  Height="16" Stretch="Fill" Source="Images\closedfolder16.png" />
        <TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Index}" Margin="5,0" ToolTip="{Binding Path=Index}"/>
    </StackPanel>
</HierarchicalDataTemplate>
<HierarchicalDataTemplate x:Key="MyTreeViewStyle"
                          ItemsSource="{Binding Path=Contacts}"
                          ItemTemplate="{StaticResource ChildTemplate}">
    <!-- Display the Index by showing it's Index string -->
    <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
        <Image x:Name="img" Width="16" Height="16" Stretch="Fill" Source="Images\closedfolder16.png" />
        <TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Name}" Margin="5,0" ToolTip="{Binding Path=Name}"/>
    </StackPanel>
</HierarchicalDataTemplate>

and the code Inside the UserControl is like this

C#

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Data;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Data;
using System.Windows.Documents;
using System.Windows.Input;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Media.Imaging;
using System.Windows.Navigation;
using System.Windows.Shapes;
using System.Collections.ObjectModel;

namespace Manufactured_Housing_Manager
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Interaction logic for Outlookbar.xaml
    /// </summary>
    public partial class Outlookbar : UserControl
    {        
        static public ObservableCollection<Contact> Contacts = new ObservableCollection<Contact>();

        public Outlookbar()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            InitializeTreeview(); 
        }

        #region left, right, mid string functions

        public static string left(string param, int length)
        {
            //we start at 0 since we want to get the characters starting from the
            //left and with the specified length and assign it to a variable
            string result = param.Substring(0, length);
            //return the result of the operation
            return result;
        }

        public static string mid(string param, int startIndex, int length)
        {
            //start at the specified index in the string and get the number of
            //characters depending on the length and assign it to a variable
            string result = param.Substring(startIndex, length);
            //return the result of the operation
            return result;
        }

        public static string right(string param, int length)
        {
            //start at the index based on the length of the string minus
            //the specified length and assign it a variable
            string result = param.Substring(param.Length - length, length);
            //return the result of the operation
            return result;
        }

        #endregion

        private void InitializeTreeview()
        {
            Contacts.Add(new Contact("Davis, Adam T.", 1));
            Contacts.Add(new Contact("Zappa, Frank", 2));

            // This is where I need to add the code to populate the treeview with name data

 
            myTreeView.DataContext = Contacts;
        }

    }
}

In this way I can see the 2 contacts I have manually added but I still don't know how to get the base a-z stucture setup right in my Collection. also need to figure out how to only populate the treeview after I have opened the oledb database and populated the dataset.

This all works fine if I have everything in one class form but by having seperate usercontrols it's prving to be more difficult to do. If I had a static database to bind too it might be easier but I am allowing for user selected databases.

I have told you how a few times now Smile | :)

and even gave you the code last time.

You need to have *26* ObservableCollection<Contact>'s.

Your *ROOT* object needs to be a SortedDictionary<char, ObservableCollection<Contact>>.

You will insert 26 entries into the sorted dictionary. Key is 'A' - 'Z' and the value is a new ObservableCollection<Contact> that contains the last names starting with that key.

Thanks for all the help I have it working now! Smile | :)

Hello,
Listbox control is being populated from the xml file using WCF.
As I place the items inside the listbox, I also would like to assign a tag for each item.
How can I dynamically populate the tag for each item in the list please?
Thanks