Silverlight: Binding a custom control to an arbitrary object
- by Ryan Bates
I am planning on writing a hierarchical organizational control, similar to an org chart. Several org chart implementations are out there, but not quite fit what I have in mind.
Binding fields in a DataTemplate to a custom object does not seem to work.
I started with a generic, custom control, i.e.
public class NodeBodyBlock : ContentControl
{
public NodeBodyBlock()
{
this.DefaultStyleKey = typeof(NodeBodyBlock);
}
}
It has a simple style in generic.xaml:
<Style TargetType="org:NodeBodyBlock">
<Setter Property="Width" Value="200" />
<Setter Property="Height" Value="100" />
<Setter Property="Background" Value="Lavender" />
<Setter Property="FontSize" Value="11" />
<Setter Property="Template">
<Setter.Value>
<ControlTemplate TargetType="org:NodeBodyBlock">
<Border Width="{TemplateBinding Width}" Height="{TemplateBinding Height}"
Background="{TemplateBinding Background}" CornerRadius="4" BorderBrush="Black" BorderThickness="1" >
<Grid>
<VisualStateManager/> ... clipped for brevity
</VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>
<ContentPresenter Content="{TemplateBinding Content}"
HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" />
</Grid>
</Border>
</ControlTemplate>
</Setter.Value>
</Setter>
</Style>
My plan now is to be able to use this common definition as a base definition of sorts, with customized version of it used to display different types of content.
A simple example would be to use this on a user control with the following style:
<Style TargetType="org:NodeBodyBlock" x:Key="TOCNode2">
<Setter Property="ContentTemplate">
<Setter.Value>
<DataTemplate>
<StackPanel>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=NodeTitle}"/>
</StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>
</Setter.Value>
</Setter>
</Style>
and an instance defined as
<org:NodeBodyBlock Style="{StaticResource TOCNode2}" x:Name="stTest"
DataContext="{StaticResource DummyData}" />
The DummyData is defined as
<toc:Node NodeNumber="mynum" NodeStatus="A"
NodeTitle="INLine Node Title!"
x:Key="DummyData"/>
With a simple C# class behind it, where each of the fields is a public property.
When running the app, the Dummy Data values simply do not show up in the GUI. A trivial test such as
<TextBlock Text="{Binding NodeTitle}" DataContext="{StaticResource DummyData}"/>
works just fine.
Any ideas around where I am missing the plot?
