I am creating an application that uses several threads as a result I want to try to use UIControls in my code behind as few as possible. The way I do it is by binding the controls to a property in my code behind that way I will be able to update the control by changing that property it does not matter if that property is updated on a different thread. Anyways I am creating the following code in order for the class to create the bindings form me.
public static class MyExtensionMethods
{
public static TextBoxBind<T> BindTextBox<T>(this TextBox textbox, string property=null)
{
return new TextBoxBind<T>(textbox,property);
}
}
public class TextBoxBind<T> : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
string property;
protected T _Value;
public T Value
{
get { return _Value; }
set { _Value = value; OnPropertyChanged(property); }
}
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged = delegate { };
protected void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName){
PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
}
public TextBoxBind(TextBox textbox, string property)
{
if (property == null)
{
property = "Value";
}
this.property = property;
Binding b = new Binding(property)
{
Source = this
};
b.UpdateSourceTrigger = UpdateSourceTrigger.PropertyChanged;
textbox.SetBinding(TextBox.TextProperty, b);
}
}
And on my XAML I have:
<TextBox Name="textBox2" />
Therefore I will be able to use the first code that I posted as:
var newTextBox2 = textBox2.BindTextBox<int>();
newTextBox2.Value = 50; // this will update the textBox2.Text = "2"
// also every time I update the value of textBox2 newTextBox2.Value will update as well
The problem is when I try to bind it to a custom object. Take this code for example:
public class Person
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Age { get; set; }
public override string ToString()
{
return Age.ToString();
}
}
void LogIn_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
txtUsuario.Focus();
var newTextBox2 = textBox2.BindTextBox<Person>("Age");
// here newTextBox2 never updates....
}
When it comes to data binding one should update an object (doesn't matter CLR property or DependencyObject) from the same thread, as the UI is running at. If you have a UI element bound to something in code, updating that from a separate thread will lead to exception. However, you can always retrieve your UI thread and perform property update there.
Here's a piece of code, that I am using in a similar situation as you have:
ThreadStart updateLogs = delegate()
{
ObservableCollection<LogMessage> newLogs = this._parcer.Parce();
foreach (LogMessage log in newLogs)
LogMessages.Add(log);
};
App.Current.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(updateLogs, null);
This block of code is running in a thread different to one UI is running at. So I extract the code, that actually updates the binding source (which is LogMessages) into a delegate updateLogs and then run this delegate in a UI thread, passing it to the application dispatcher.
Nevertheless, WPF application can have more than one Dispather if, for example, you create separate windows in separate threads, although this approach is rare. But just in case, DependencyObject class has a Dispatcher property, which references the Dispather that owns this object.
OnPropertyChanged(property); should be pointing to Value, since that's the Name of your Property.
This should not be pointing to the type T.
So this code is not right:
if (property == null)
{
property = "Value";
}
because property should always be "Value"
public T Value
{
get { return _Value; }
set { _Value = value; OnPropertyChanged("Value"); }
}
Related
I know, title is a little confusing so let me explain. I have a user control that has a dependency property. I access this dependency property with a regular property called Input. In my view model I also have a property called Input. I have these two properties bound together in XAML using two-way binding as shown below:
<uc:rdtDisplay x:Name="rdtDisplay" Input="{Binding Input, Mode=TwoWay}" Line1="{Binding myRdt.Line1}" Line2="{Binding myRdt.Line2}" Height="175" Width="99" Canvas.Left="627" Canvas.Top="10"/>
Okay in my view model, I call a method whenever the value of Input is changed as shown in my property:
public string Input
{
get
{
return input;
}
set
{
input = value;
InputChanged();
}
}
The problem with this is that when I set the value of Input in my view model it only updates the value of the variable input as per my setter in my property. How can I get this to update back to the dependency property in the user control? If I leave the code input = value; out then I get a compilation error.
I need something like this:
public string Input
{
get
{
return UserControl.Input;
}
set
{
UserControl.Input = value;
InputChanged();
}
}
If I make the Input property in my view model look like this:
public string Input
{
get; set;
}
then it works, however, I am unable to call the InputChanged() method that I need to call when the Property is changed. All suggestions are appreciated.
Implement INotifyPropertyChanged in your ViewModel
public class Sample : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
private string input = string.Empty;
public string Input
{
get
{
return input;
}
set
{
input = value;
NotifyPropertyChanged("Input");
InputChanged();
}
}
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
private void NotifyPropertyChanged(String info)
{
if (PropertyChanged != null)
{
PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(info));
}
}
}
In your case, you can do it in the code behind of your usercontrol
Recently I've been learning C# and WPF for work. I'm trying to use MVVM on a project I'm working on, just to keep the code organized and learn how it works.
In MVVM, controls on the View bind to properties on the ViewModel, which implements INotifyPropertyChanged. Pretty often, when a certain property is updated, I'll want a bunch of other properties to get updated as a result.
For example, I have a ListBox with a TextBox above it. You can type in the TextBox, and it filters the stuff in the ListBox. But I also need to be able to clear the TextBox from code in certain cases. The code ends up looking like this:
private Collection<string> _listOfStuff;
public Collection<string> FilteredList
{
get
{
if (String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(SearchText))
{
return _listOfStuff;
}
else
{
return new Collection<string>(_listOfStuff.Where(x => x.Contains(SearchText)));
}
}
set
{
if (value != _listOfStuff)
{
_listOfStuff = value;
OnPropertyChanged("FilteredList");
}
}
}
private string _searchText;
public string SearchText
{
get { return _searchText; }
set
{
if (value != _searchText)
{
_searchText = value;
OnPropertyChanged("SearchText"); // Tells the view to change the value of the TextBox
OnPropertyChanged("FilteredList"); // Tells the view to update the filtered list
}
}
}
As this project gets bigger, this is starting to feel sloppy. I have one setter with 6 calls to OnPropertyChanged and it's getting hard to keep track of stuff. Is there a better way to do this?
I tried out Assisticant on a project about a year ago. It figures out which of your properties need to raise notifications and also which are related. There is a good course for it on Pluralsight and the examples on the website are pretty good. If nothing else you could check out the source code to see how he did it.
Also some good suggestions from Change Notification in MVVM Hierarchies.
They mentioned:
Use an attribute -> e.g. [DependsUpon(nameof(Size))]
and
Josh Smith's PropertyObserver
Could put the raise property change calls in a method if you just need to raise the same notifications every time.
First you shouldn't do potentially expensive operations in a command, then you'll be able to remove the OnPropertyChanged("FilteredList"); from your SearchText.
So you should move that code from the getter and into it's own command and bind it from XAML (either as Command on a button or using Blends Interactivity Trigger to call it when the text fields value changes).
public ICommand SearchCommand { get; protected set; }
// Constructor
public MyViewModel()
{
// DelegateCommand.FromAsyncHandler is from Prism Framework, but you can use
// whatever your MVVM framework offers for async commands
SearchCommand = DelegateCommand.FromAsyncHandler(DoSearch);
}
public async Task DoSearch()
{
var result = await _listOfStuff.Where(x => x.Contains(SearchText)).ToListAsync();
FilteredList = new Collection<string>(result);
}
private Collection<string> _listOfStuff;
private Collection<string> _filteredList;
public Collection<string> FilteredList
{
get
{
return _filteredList;
}
set
{
if (value != _filteredList)
{
_filteredList = value;
OnPropertyChanged("FilteredList");
}
}
}
private string _searchText;
public string SearchText
{
get
{
return _searchText;
}
set
{
if (value != _searchText)
{
_searchText = value;
OnPropertyChanged("SearchText");
}
}
}
On a side note: You can also use OnPropertyChanged(nameof(FilteredList)); to have a refactor friendly version, when you rename your property all of your OnPropertyChanged calls will be updated to. Requires C# 6.0 though, but it's compatible with older .NET Frameworks (back to 2.0), but requires Visual Studio 2015 or later
For anyone searching for a good solution to this type of problem: Check out ReactiveUI.
It is a framework based on Reactive Extensions (Rx), with the idea that you model this type of dependencies between properties explicitly, without a jungle of RaisePropertyChanged(..).
Specifically check out the ObservableAsPropertyHelper (sometimes called OAPH).
You should only raise OnPropertyChanged in the setter of the property itself.
A cleaner implementation of your ViewModel can be:
private Collection<string> _listOfStuff;
private Collection<string> _filteredList;
public Collection<string> FilteredList
{
get
{
return _filteredList;
}
set
{
if (value != _filteredList)
{
_filteredList = value;
OnPropertyChanged("FilteredList");
}
}
}
private string _searchText;
public string SearchText
{
get { return _searchText; }
set
{
if (value != _searchText)
{
_searchText = value;
OnPropertyChanged("SearchText");
FilteredList = new Collection<string>(_listOfStuff.Where(x => x.Contains(SearchText)));
}
}
}
if you just don't wanna type only other option is to fire OnPropertyChanged for all properties which can be done by passing a null or string.Empty, although it will be sloppier code!
OnPropertyChanged(Null);
or
OnPropertyChanged(String.Empty);
Given a standard view model implementation, when a property changes, is there any way to determine the originator of the change? In other words, in the following view model, I would like the "sender" argument of the "PropertyChanged" event to be the actual object that called the Prop1 setter:
public class ViewModel : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
public double Prop1
{
get { return _prop1; }
set
{
if (_prop1 == value)
return;
_prop1 = value;
// here, can I determine the sender?
RaisePropertyChanged(propertyName: "Prop1", sender: this);
}
}
private double _prop1;
// TODO implement INotifyPropertyChanged
}
Alternatively, is it possible to apply CallerMemberNameAttribute to a property setter?
If I understood correctly, you're asking about the caller of the setter. That means, the previous method call in the call stack before getting to the setter itself (which is a method too).
Use StackTrace.GetFrames method for this. For example (taken from http://www.csharp-examples.net/reflection-callstack/):
using System.Diagnostics;
[STAThread]
public static void Main()
{
StackTrace stackTrace = new StackTrace(); // get call stack
StackFrame[] stackFrames = stackTrace.GetFrames(); // get method calls (frames)
// write call stack method names
foreach (StackFrame stackFrame in stackFrames)
{
Console.WriteLine(stackFrame.GetMethod().Name); // write method name
}
}
The output:
Main
nExecuteAssembly
ExecuteAssembly
RunUsersAssembly
ThreadStart_Context
Run
ThreadStart
Basically, what you're asking for would be stackFrames[1].GetMethod().Name.
My first approach to your problem would be to derive from PropertyEventArgs. The new class would have a member called, for instance PropertyChangeOrigin in addition to PropertyName. When you invoke the RaisePropertyChanged, you supply an instance of the new class with the PropertyChangeOrigin set from the information gleaned from the CallerMemberName attribute. Now, when you subscribe to the event, the subscriber could try casting the eventargs to your new class and use the information if the cast is successful.
This is what I always use as a middle-ground between INotifyPropertyChanged and my View Models:
public class NotifyOnPropertyChanged : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
private IDictionary<string, PropertyChangedEventArgs> _arguments;
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged = delegate { };
public void OnPropertyChanged([CallerMemberName] string property = "")
{
if(_arguments == null)
{
_arguments = new Dictionary<string, PropertyChangedEventArgs>();
}
if(!_arguments.ContainsKey(property))
{
_arguments.Add(property, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(property));
}
PropertyChanged(this, _arguments[property]);
}
}
Two things here. It uses the [CallerMemberName] attribute to set the property name. This makes the usage syntax as follows:
public string Words
{
set
{
if(value != _words)
{
_words = value;
OnPropertyChanged( );
}
}
}
Beyond that, it stores the PropertyChangedEventArgs object in a dictionary so it's not created a ton of times for properties that are frequently set. I believe this addresses your problem. Good luck!
Whenever I have had to pass in extra information down into a VM I have a great success with using commands:
Commands, RelayCommands and EventToCommand
I'm building a WPF application and I'm slowly uncovering some of the joys and also the frustrations of using WPF. My latest question involves updating the UI using INotifyPropertyChanged
My app has stacked UserControls with each UserControl containing multiple controls, so overall there are hundreds of controls which update every second providing live data. In order to update all controls I'm using something similar to below which does currently work as intended.
namespace ProjectXAML
{
public partial class ProjectX : UserControl, INotifyPropertyChanged
{
#region Declare Getter/Setter with INotifyPropertyChanged groupx3
private string m_group1Text1;
public string group1Text1
{
get
{
return m_group1Text1;
}
set
{
m_group1Text1 = value;
NotifyPropertyChanged("group1Text1");
}
}
private string m_group1Text2;
public string group1Text2
{
get
{
return m_group1Text2;
}
set
{
m_group1Text2 = value;
NotifyPropertyChanged("group1Text2");
}
}
private string m_group2Text1;
public string group2Text1
{
get
{
return m_group2Text1;
}
set
{
m_group2Text1 = value;
NotifyPropertyChanged("group2Text1");
}
}
private string m_group2Text2;
public string group2Text2
{
get
{
return m_group2Text2;
}
set
{
m_group2Text2 = value;
NotifyPropertyChanged("group2Text2");
}
}
private string m_group3Text1;
public string group3Text1
{
get
{
return m_group3Text1;
}
set
{
m_group3Text1 = value;
NotifyPropertyChanged("group3Text1");
}
}
private string m_group3Text2;
public string group3Text2
{
get
{
return m_group3Text2;
}
set
{
m_group3Text2 = value;
NotifyPropertyChanged("group3Text2");
}
}
#endregion
#region INotifyPropertyChanged Members
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
/// Notifies the property changed.
private void NotifyPropertyChanged(string property)
{
if (PropertyChanged != null)
{
PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(property));
}
}
#endregion
}
}
My questions are:
Is there a more elegant way to raise PropertyChanged events for lots of controls rather than lots of get/set code?
Is there a way to raise 1 PropertyChanged event covering the whole UserControl containing multiple controls instead of a separate event for every control? Is there a better method than what I'm attempting?
In strict reference to this part of your question..."Is there a way to raise 1 PropertyChanged event covering the whole UserControl containing ".
Yes, you can raise a PropertyChanged notification which says all my properties on my object are updated.
Use:
NotifyPropertyChanged(null);
then this informs the listener of INotifyPropertyChanged that all properties have changed on an object.
This isn't normally used...and can be abused....and cause inefficient updates e.g. if you were only changing a few properties and used that.
But you could argue the case for using it if you have lots of properties in your object, that you were always changing anyway at the same time...and you wanted to collapse lots of individual notifications into 1 that was raised after you had modified all properties.
Example use case (i.e. presumes you are updating all your groups in some way):
void UpdateAllGroupTextProperties()
{
group1Text1 = "groupA";
group1Text2 = "groupA2";
group2Text1 = "groupB";
group2Text2 = "groupB2";
group3Text1 = "groupC";
group3Text2 = "groupC2";
NotifyPropertyChanged(null);
}
For point 1 if you are using VS 2012 you can do the below
private void SetProperty<T>(ref T field, T value, [CallerMemberName] string name = "")
{
if (!EqualityComparer<T>.Default.Equals(field, value))
{
field = value;
var handler = PropertyChanged;
if (handler != null)
{
handler(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(name));
}
}
}
and then you can use your set property method without having to hard code the name of the properties.
Note the above code is an except of the below link
http://danrigby.com/2012/03/01/inotifypropertychanged-the-net-4-5-way/
Use the design pattern model view controler. So the model will raise the changes for you. Together with MVVM the controls will see with its dependency objects the changes and view them automatically.
Objective-c/cocoa offers a form of binding where a control's properties (ie text in a textbox) can be bound to the property of an object. I am trying to duplicate this functionality in C# w/ .Net 3.5.
I have created the following very simple class in the file MyClass.cs:
class MyClass
{
private string myName;
public string MyName
{
get
{
return myName;
}
set
{
myName = value;
}
}
public MyClass()
{
myName = "Allen";
}
}
I also created a simple form with 1 textbox and 1 button. I init'd one instance of Myclass inside the form code and built the project. Using the DataSource Wizard in Vs2008, I selected to create a data source based on object, and selected the MyClass assembly. This created a datasource entity. I changed the databinding of the textbox to this datasource; however, the expected result (that the textbox's contents would be "allen") was not achieved. Further, putting text into the textbox is not updating the name property of the object.
I know i'm missing something fundamental here. At some point i should have to tie my instance of the MyClass class that i initialized inside the form code to the textbox, but that hasn't occurred. Everything i've looked at online seems to gloss over using DataBinding with an object (or i'm missing the mark entirely), so any help is great appreciated.
Edit:
Utilizing what I learned by the answers, I looked at the code generated by Visual Studio, it had the following:
this.myClassBindingSource.DataSource = typeof(BindingTest.MyClass);
if I comment that out and substitute:
this.myClassBindingSource.DataSource = new MyClass();
I get the expected behavior. Why is the default code generated by VS like it is? Assuming this is more correct than the method that works, how should I modify my code to work within the bounds of what VS generated?
You must assign the textbox's data source to be your new datasource. But additionally, you must assign the datasource's datasource to be an instance of your class.
MyDataSource.DataSource = new MyClass();
TextBox1.DataSource = MyDataSource;
That should work for your first pass. As others have mentioned, you may need to implement additional interfaces on your class (INotifyPropertyChanged etc), if you are going to be modifying the class properties via any background processes.
If you are only updating the properties via the form, then you do not need this step.
You should implement the INotifyPropertyChanged interface to your MyClass type:
public class MyClass : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
private string _myName;
public string MyName
{
get { return _myName; }
set
{
if( _myName != value )
{
_myName = value;
OnPropertyChanged("MyName");
}
}
}
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
private void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName)
{
if( PropertyChanged != null )
PropertyChanged( this , new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName) );
}
}
This interface is required for the DataBinding infrastructure if you want to support simple databinding.
The INotifyPropertyChanged interface is used to notify a 'binding' that a property has changed, so the DataBinding infrastructure can act accordingly to it.
Then, you can databind the MyName property to the Text Property of the textbox.
I get an error message in the DataBinding.Add("TEXT", myObject, myObjectProperty) method
This is probably because you're missing the explicit {get;set;} on the property declaration!
BAD:
public string FirstName; //<-- you will not be able to bind to this property!
GOOD:
public string FirstName { get; set; }
Looks like you probably need a Bindable attribute on your MyName property (and follow Frederik's suggestion as well):
[System.ComponentModel.Bindable(true)]
public string MyName
{
get { return _myName; }
set
{
if( _myName != value )
{
_myName = value;
OnPropertyChanged("MyName");
}
}
}
Via: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/327413
I don't have any code in front of me, but I think the data source is kind of like a collection. You have to add an instance of MyClass to the data source, and that's what the form fields will bind to. There's also methods for navigating through the data source to multiple instances of MyClass, but it doesn't sound like you need that. Check the docs for DataSource.
I don't think you need to implement any fancy interfaces. I seem to remember there's a method on the data source that lets you refresh or rebind the current item after you change some values.
using System.Collections.Generic;
public class SiteDataItem
{
private string _text;
private string _url;
private int _id;
private int _parentId;
public string Text
{
get
{
return _text;
}
set
{
_text = value;
}
}
public string Url
{
get
{
return _url;
}
set
{
_url = value;
}
}
public int ID
{
get
{
return _id;
}
set
{
_id = value;
}
}
public int ParentID
{
get
{
return _parentId;
}
set
{
_parentId = value;
}
}
public SiteDataItem(int id, int parentId, string text, string url)
{
_id = id;
_parentId = parentId;
_text = text;
_url = url;
}
public static List<SiteDataItem> GetSiteData()
{
List<SiteDataItem> siteData = new List<SiteDataItem>();
siteData.Add(new SiteDataItem(1, 0, "All Sites", ""));
siteData.Add(new SiteDataItem(2, 1, "Search Engines", ""));
siteData.Add(new SiteDataItem(3, 1, "News Sites", ""));
siteData.Add(new SiteDataItem(4, 2, "Yahoo", "http://www.yahoo.com"));
siteData.Add(new SiteDataItem(5, 2, "MSN", "http://www.msn.com"));
siteData.Add(new SiteDataItem(6, 2, "Google", "http://www.google.com"));
siteData.Add(new SiteDataItem(7, 3, "CNN", "http://www.cnn.com"));
siteData.Add(new SiteDataItem(8, 3, "BBC", "http://www.bbc.co.uk"));
siteData.Add(new SiteDataItem(9, 3, "FOX", "http://www.foxnews.com"));
return siteData;
}
}
More detail you can read tutorial dapfor. com