How to best propagate changes upwards a hierarchical structure for binding?
- by H.B.
If i have a folder-like structure that uses the composite design pattern and i bind the root folder to a TreeView. It would be quite useful if i can display certain properties that are being accumulated from the folder's contents. The question is, how do i best inform the folder that changes occurred in a child-element so that the accumulative properties get updated?
The context in which i need this is a small RSS-FeedReader i am trying to make. This are the most important objects and aspects of my model:
Composite interface:
public interface IFeedComposite : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
string Title { get; set; }
int UnreadFeedItemsCount { get; }
ObservableCollection<FeedItem> FeedItems { get; }
}
FeedComposite (aka Folder)
public class FeedComposite : BindableObject, IFeedComposite
{
private string title = "";
public string Title
{
get { return title; }
set
{
title = value;
NotifyPropertyChanged("Title");
}
}
private ObservableCollection<IFeedComposite> children = new ObservableCollection<IFeedComposite>();
public ObservableCollection<IFeedComposite> Children
{
get { return children; }
set
{
children.Clear();
foreach (IFeedComposite item in value)
{
children.Add(item);
}
NotifyPropertyChanged("Children");
}
}
public FeedComposite() { }
public FeedComposite(string title)
{
Title = title;
}
public ObservableCollection<FeedItem> FeedItems
{
get
{
ObservableCollection<FeedItem> feedItems = new ObservableCollection<FeedItem>();
foreach (IFeedComposite child in Children)
{
foreach (FeedItem item in child.FeedItems)
{
feedItems.Add(item);
}
}
return feedItems;
}
}
public int UnreadFeedItemsCount
{
get
{
return (from i in FeedItems
where i.IsUnread
select i).Count();
}
}
Feed:
public class Feed : BindableObject, IFeedComposite
{
private string url = "";
public string Url
{
get { return url; }
set
{
url = value;
NotifyPropertyChanged("Url");
}
}
...
private ObservableCollection<FeedItem> feedItems = new ObservableCollection<FeedItem>();
public ObservableCollection<FeedItem> FeedItems
{
get { return feedItems; }
set
{
feedItems.Clear();
foreach (FeedItem item in value)
{
AddFeedItem(item);
}
NotifyPropertyChanged("Items");
}
}
public int UnreadFeedItemsCount
{
get
{
return (from i in FeedItems
where i.IsUnread
select i).Count();
}
}
public Feed() { }
public Feed(string url)
{
Url = url;
}
Ok, so here's the thing, if i bind a TextBlock.Text to the UnreadFeedItemsCount there won't be simple notifications when an item is marked unread, so one of my approaches has been to handle the PropertyChanged event of every FeedItem and if the IsUnread-Property is changed i have my Feed make a notification that the property UnreadFeedItemsCount has been changed. With this approach i also need to handle all PropertyChanged events of all Feeds and FeedComposites in Children of FeedComposite, from the sound of it, it should be obvious that this is not such a very good idea, you need to be very careful that items never get added or removed to any collection without having attached the PropertyChanged event handler first and things like that.
Also: What do i do with the CollectionChanged-Events which necessarily also cause a change in the sum of the unread items count? Sounds like more event handling fun.
It is such a mess, it would be great if anyone has an elegant solution to this since i don't want the feed-reader to end up as awful as my first attempt years ago when i didn't even know about DataBinding...
