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Set selecteditem of combobox in wpf

I have an issue that I cannot solve myself and need your support.
In my WPF-Application I have a MainWindow with some kind of navigation bar (based on System.Windows.Controls.Ribbon) and a content area.
When I click one button1 (RibbonButton), I assign a Page to the content area of the MainWindow.
In the Page I have a combobox with several values/items and I want the value to be selected that matches to the label or name of the button I pressed in the navigation.
When I press the other button in the navigation, another item should be selected in the combobox.
Unfortunately, in my button_click event that is in the code behind of the MainWindow, I am not able to access the combobox of the Page-object.
Can someone help me how to access the combobox of the Page-object within the click event of the MainWindow?
Thank you and regards
TPS

are you using MVVM?
As I read you are using code behind in your code right?, I guess you have a reference to your page I right? I think you can create a public method on the Page I, and send the value you want to be set in the commbobox through that method, then if you are using mvvm, send that value to your viewmodel property asociated with the combobox SelectedItem.
private void ribonButton_click()
{ thePageI.SetComboboxwith("this value");
.....
}
in the PageI
public void SetCombobox( string theValue){
myViewModel.SetSelectedItem(theValue);
}
Something like that

Can't deselect ListView Item in MVVM UWP

I want to be able to click ListView item, which then takes me to appropriate page. But since there doesn't exists anything like ClickedItem to go along with the ItemClick, I have to use the SelectedItem (to get the object of what the user clicked) and SelectionChanged to capture when it happens (because this is setup in a way that when user clicks, he makes a selection, which triggers this).
Since in MVVM I can't use events, I'm binding what would be events to methods in my ViewModel.
<GridView x:Name="MyGrid"
ItemsSource="{x:Bind ViewModel.myList, Mode=OneWay}"
VerticalAlignment="Stretch"
HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"
IsSwipeEnabled="false"
SelectedItem="{Binding mySelectedItem, Mode=TwoWay}" // Binding makes it easier to bind the whole object
SelectionChanged="{x:Bind ViewModel.SelectioMade}"
>
I fill up my list in the ViewModel. I'm using Template10 implementation of INotifyPropertyChanged.
private MyListItemClass _mySelectedItem;
public MyListItemClass mySelectedItem{
get { return _mySelectedItem; }
set { Set(ref _mySelectedItem, value); }
}
And this simple method pushes me to the next page when user clickes on an item.
public void SelectioMade() {
if (_mySelectedItem != null) {
NavigationService.Navigate(typeof(Views.DetailPage), _mySelectedItem.id);
}
}
This works.
Problem is that a selection is made and it persists. When I hit the back button on the DetailPage, I go back to this list as I left it and the clicked item is still selected. And hence, clicking it again doesn't actually make a selection and trigger the SelectionChanged.
Obvious choice seemed to be to just set mySelectedItem to null when I no longer need the value, but it doesn't work.
public void SelectioMade() {
if (_mySelectedItem != null) {
NavigationService.Navigate(typeof(Views.DetailPage), _mySelectedItem.id);
mySelectedItem = null;
}
}
I can't seem to be able to set it back to null. If I place a break point on the mySelectedItem = null; it just doesn't do anything. It does trigger the set { Set(ref _mySelectedItem, value); }, but the View doesn't update. Neither the clicked item becomes deselected, nor a TextBlock I bound to one of the mySelectedItem.id properties gets changed (or rather emptied).
I would like to know why doesn't this work and possibly how to fix it. My MVVM may not be perfect, I'm still learning. And while it may not be perfect, I'm not really looking for advice how to properly write MVVM. I want to know why this doesn't work, because in my opinion, it should work just fine.

It seems that GridView doesn't like the SelectedItem property being changed within the SelectionChanged handler (it could result in an infinite loop if guards are not used). You could instead set SelectedItem to null in the OnNavigatedTo handler for that page (or whatever the Template 10 equivalent of that is).
Also you don't really need to subscribe to the SelectionChanged event since you can detect this in the setter of your mySelectedItem property.
However, I think it is wrong to handle item clicks by listening for selection changed events because the selection can be changed by other means (up/down arrow key, or tab key, for example). All you want to do is to respond to an item click and obtain the clicked item, right? For this, you can x:Bind the ItemClick event to a method in your view model:
<GridView ItemClick="{x:Bind ViewModel.ItemClick}" SelectionMode="None" IsItemClickEnabled="True">
public void ItemClick(object sender, ItemClickEventArgs e)
{
var item = e.ClickedItem;
}
If you're uneasy about the ItemClick method signature in your view model, then you can make your own ItemClick behavior to execute a Command exposed in your view model with the command's parameter bound to the clicked item.
If you're not using behaviors for some reason, then you can make your own attached property instead, something like this:
public class ViewHelpers
{
#region ItemClickCommand
public static readonly DependencyProperty ItemClickCommandProperty =
DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("ItemClickCommand", typeof(ICommand), typeof(ViewHelpers), new PropertyMetadata(null, onItemClickCommandPropertyChanged));
public static void SetItemClickCommand(DependencyObject d, ICommand value)
{
d.SetValue(ItemClickCommandProperty, value);
}
public static ICommand GetItemClickCommand(DependencyObject d)
{
return (ICommand)d.GetValue(ItemClickCommandProperty);
}
static void onItemClickCommandPropertyChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
var listView = d as ListViewBase;
if (listView == null)
throw new Exception("Dependency object must be a ListViewBase");
listView.ItemClick -= onItemClick;
listView.ItemClick += onItemClick;
}
static void onItemClick(object sender, ItemClickEventArgs e)
{
var listView = sender as ListViewBase;
var command = GetItemClickCommand(listView);
if (command != null && command.CanExecute(e.ClickedItem))
command.Execute(e.ClickedItem);
}
#endregion
}
XAML doesn't require MVVM patterns to be used, which means there is lots of "missing" functionality that you need to write yourself to make MVVM easier for you (like the above ItemClick attached property). Maybe Template 10 provides some behaviors for you already? I'm not familiar with it.

My first instinct would be to check your Set method, to ensure that it is really sending the proper notification to the view. I am not familiar with the Template10 implementation, so it seems strange to me that you are not required to provide a property name with Set().
Beyond that, I would suggest that you go back to using Click rather than SelectionChanged, since that is the behavior you are actually interested in. You should read a bit about attached properties, which are a great way to accomplish tasks that would normally require code-behind without actually using code-behind. They make MVVM a lot more practical and a lot less hackish.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms749011(v=vs.110).aspx
An attached property, more or less, allows you to define a DependencyProperty that you can attach to any element in XAML, like your GridView. Because you get access to the Element in the setter, you are free to attach to its events. So, you can create an attached property with a delegate type, which will forward an event like click to the delegate. Back in the view, you bind it to your handler in the ViewModel like this:
<GridView something:MyAttachedProperties.ClickHandler="{Binding MyClickHandler}" />
Hope this helps!

SelectedIndex = -1, following your null set of the SelectedItem property? So yes another property would be required or make sure that caching is disabled for that page as well.

Event handlers when using a string as a data template for dataform in Silverlight

I am attempting to form some xaml for a dataform programmatically using a string. I can get the combo box to appear. but when I attempt to use the code specifying the "MouseLeftButtonUp" or the "Loaded" event handler in the string; the page will turn white (no noticeable error) out after going into it. Please see relevant code below.
StringBuilder editTemplate = new StringBuilder("");
editTemplate.Append("<DataTemplate ");
editTemplate.Append("xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation' ");
editTemplate.Append("xmlns:toolkit='http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation/toolkit' ");
editTemplate.Append("xmlns:navigation='clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Navigation' ");
editTemplate.Append("xmlns:x='http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml' >");
editTemplate.Append("<StackPanel>");
editTemplate.Append(#" <toolkit:DataField Label='" + GetFieldWithoutNumber(theInfo, theDataContext) + "'>");
/* Won't Work */ editTemplate.Append(#" <ComboBox MouseLeftButtonUp='ComboBox_MouseLeftButtonUp' />");
/* Will Work */ editTemplate.Append(#" <ComboBox />");
editTemplate.Append(#" </toolkit:DataField>");
editTemplate.Append("</StackPanel></DataTemplate>");
dynamicDataForm.EditTemplate = XamlReader.Load(editTemplate.ToString()) as DataTemplate;

Event handlers hooked up in XAML are required to be declared in the code-behind connected to the XAML file. In the case of a ResourceDictionary or anything loaded from XamlReader.Load there can't be any code-behind, so event handlers can't be set in the XAML. The easiest way to get around this restriction would be to not build your template from strings and just declare it in the Resources section of your XAML file which you can then do like:
Resources["MyTemplate"] as DataTemplate
to get the template and assign it in code like you're doing here, or just use StaticResource in XAML. As long as it stays in the same XAML file connected to this code the event handlers you have in it currently should work fine. The dynamic part of the strings would also need to be changed to use Bindings.
If you want to stick with the XamlReader method you have 2 problems to solve.
Locate the ComboBox instance inside the rendered template
Wait until the template is rendered to look for the ComboBox
To find the ComboBox you need to first give it an x:Name attribute in the template text (you can just replace the event code currently there). Next you need to be able to locate an item in the visual tree by name. This is fairly straightforward and you can find an example here to do that.
To call this code at the right time you either need to override OnApplyTemplate, which unfortunately won't work if you're in something like a UserControl, or use another trick to keep it from running until all the controls are rendered. Here's a full example that could go in a constructor and uses the find method linked from above:
DataTemplate template = Resources["MyTemplate"] as DataTemplate;
dynamicDataForm.ContentTemplate = template;
Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() =>
{
ComboBox button = FindVisualChildByName<ComboBox>(this, "MyControl");
if (button != null)
button.MouseLeftButtonUp += (s, _) => MessageBox.Show("Click");
});
In your case it looks like your template might need to wait to switch to an edit state before it renders in which case you'd need to hold off on connecting the event and find some other event on your dataform that happens when that state is changed.

One solution is to handle the BeginningEdit event of the DataForm and use that to subscribe your event handler to the ComboBox's MouseLeftButtonUp event.
To do this, add to your code-behind a private field named isEventWiredUp. We'll use this field to keep track of whether we've subscribed to the event and prevent the event from being subscribed to more than once.
Next, add an x:Name="..." attribute to your ComboBox. We use this name to get at the combobox.
Once that is done, add the following two methods, which should do what you want. Replace yourComboBoxName with the x:Name you gave to your combobox:
private void dynamicDataForm_BeginningEdit(object sender, CancelEventArgs e)
{
Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(OnBeginEdit);
}
private void OnBeginEdit()
{
if (!isEventWiredUp)
{
var combobox = dynamicDataForm.FindNameInContent("yourComboBoxName") as ComboBox;
if (combobox != null)
{
combobox.MouseLeftButtonUp += combobox_MouseLeftButtonUp;
isEventWiredUp = true;
}
}
}
Subscribe the first of these two methods to the DataForm's BeginningEdit event.
I have to admit that I was unable to get the MouseLeftButtonUp event to fire on the ComboBox. I'm not sure why this happens, but it seems to be a general problem with the ComboBox as opposed to something that happens because of the way you're constructing XAML. I was able to get an event handler for the ComboBox's SelectionChanged event to work, however.
I also tried replacing the Dispatcher.BeginInvoke line with a direct call to the OnBeginEdit method, but I found that this approach didn't work. The events weren't quite wired up correctly; again, I'm not sure why.

Rather than trying to hookup the event directly, you can use interactivity to bind up your events
e.g.
...
editTemplate.Append("xmlns:i='clr-namespace:System.Windows.Interactivity;assembly=System.Windows.Interactivity' ");
...
editTemplate.Append(#"
<ComboBox>
<i:Interaction.Triggers>
<i:EventTrigger EventName='MouseLeftButtonUp'>
<i:InvokeCommandAction Command='{Binding DataContext.YourCommand,
RelativeSource={RelativeSource AncestorType=XXX}}'
CommandParameter='{Binding}'/>
</i:EventTrigger>
</i:Interaction.Triggers>
</ComboBox>");
you might have to use some ancestor binding to get to the context on which your handler is defined. I use a custom implementation of InvokeCommandAction; basically a copy of System.Windows.Interactivity.InvokeCommandAction but extended so that it will pass the event args to the command, you might want to do the same.

XamlReader.Load not allowed to attach eventHandlers in it.
so use this technique to dynamically attach the eventHandlers to it.
1- Write your Xaml string without eventHandlers -But write the Name property of those Controls.
2- Load the string with XamlReader.Load(str);
3- Then load the content of DataTemplate from it. using Grid template = ((Grid)(dt.LoadContent()));
Note: here Grid is the parent Control in DataTemplate.
4- Find the Control by Name you want to attach the Event Handler.
Button img = (Button)template.FindName("MyButtonInDataTemplate");
I hope it helps.

LongListSelector: Item tap?

I am using LongListSelector control on Windows Phone 8 and can't figure out the best way to handle a tap on an item.
The few examples I've found rely on the SelectionChanged event. However, this solution is buggy because if I tap an item that opens a new page, hit back, and then tap the same item again, it won't work because this item is already selected, so SelectionChanged is not triggered.
I tried to register to the tap event and use the current selected item as the tapped one, but some times the current selected item is not the one I expect.
I could wrap my ItemTemplate in a button and handle the tap for each item but I need to reskin the button to make it look like a simple list item.
Finally, I don't understand why it is so complicated to achieve such a basic thing. Is there a simple and standard way I missed?
My second wish is to get an effect on the item when it is tapped. Is there any standard way to do it?

You could null your LongListSelector's SelectedItem at the end of each SelectionChanged event. I.e.
<phone:LongListSelector x:Name="LLS" SelectionChanged="LLS_SelectionChanged">
And the event handler:
private void LLS_SelectionChanged(object sender, SelectionChangedEventArgs e) {
// If selected item is null, do nothing
if (LLS.SelectedItem == null)
return;
// Navigate to the next page
NavigationService.Navigate(new Uri("/nextpage.xaml", UriKind.Relative));
// Reset selected item to null
LLS.SelectedItem = null;
}
You'll fire the SelectionChanged event twice, but nothing's going to happen the second time round and you should get the behaviour that you're looking for - (i.e Setting SelectedItem to null will trigger a new SelectionChanged event, but this second event gets caught in the if-statement)
As for the second part of your question, you might be better posting a new question.

I done it with the Tap event handling.
I prefer not to use Selected property, but get tapped item this way (and I haven't noticed any bugs):
MyListItemClass item = ((FrameworkElement)e.OriginalSource).DataContext
as MyListItemClass;
Also, you could get the original item ContentPresenter simple by navigating up through VisualTree from e.OriginalSource. That way:
ContentPresenter itemPresenter = SomeHelperClass
.FindParent<ContentPresenter>(e.OriginalSource,"");
Where FindParent is similar to find child in this question: How can I find WPF controls by name or type?
ContentPresenter is that object what you need to manually change the item template if you want to (to set "selected" state for example).

private void Item_tap(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
var element = (FrameworkElement)sender;
DataSource data = (DataSource)element.DataContext;
}

My second wish is to get an effect on the item when it is tapped. Is
there any standard way to do it?
For this the only thing you need to do add this to your control (or stackpanel where you want to have this effect):
<StackPanel toolkit:TiltEffect.IsTiltEnabled="True">

first add this to *.xaml page inside the
LongListSelectorSelectionChanged="listBox_SelectionChanged"
so that it looks like this :
<toolkit:LongListSelector x:Name="listBox" SelectionChanged="listBox_SelectionChanged">
then in the *.xaml.cs file in the event handler
private void listBox_SelectionChanged(object sender, SelectionChangedEventArgs e)
{
// Write your logic on what you want to do with the selected item
}

In addition to halil´s answer:
First of all you need to install the Windows Phone Toolkit (WPtoolkit) by NuGet.
Than add the namespace declaration on the PhoneApplicationPage.
xmlns:toolkit="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone.Controls.Toolkit"
After this you can add toolkit:TiltEffect.IsTiltEnabled="True" to the control definition.
It is nice documneted by NOKIA:
http://developer.nokia.com/community/wiki/Tilt_Effect_for_Windows_Phone
Oliver

Cannont Update control in WPF custom control

I have created a custom control which holds a button in it. The button is styled, so as to hold a grid with two rows, an image in the first and a TextBlock in the second. I have written an Event Handler for the custom control. When the mouse enters the path of the object the MouseEnter event fires, where I try to change the TextBlock's FontSize and Foreground color, however the control does not update. In contrast, I have tried to modify an regular TextBlock's(not part a custom control and controltemplate) properties, and they update correctly, on the fly.
What am I missing here?? Here is the code for the event handler:
private void ThemeButton_MouseEnter(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
InitializeProperties();
TextElement.FontSize = 16;
TextElement.Text = "new text";
TextElement.Foreground = Brushes.Red;
TextBlock element = MainWindow.FindChild<TextBlock>(MainWindow.StartWindow, "textField");
element.Text = "new text for regular textblock";
element.Foreground = Brushes.Red;
}
InitializeProperties is a methid that initializes TextElement(typeof TextBlock) and ImageElement(typeof Image) properties. They are not null. The properties are just regular .NET properties.

wow...my problem actually was that the Properties(TextElement and ImageElemenet) were pointing to the elements in the template(custom control) and not to the elements that actually got rendered in the Window...
Remember, when searching for elements, always start your search after rendering is complete(i.e. start search when a user action fires an event or something similar) so that the elements get into the Visual Tree!!