CellTemplate and Bindings

[Jason Lescalleet]

I'm evaluating the RadGridView as a possible data grid for a project I am working on.  One of the things I need the grid to do is to use custom controls to display and edit the contents of cells.  I can do this with the CellTemplate and CellEditTemplate like so:

<controls:GridViewDataColumn Header="Field 1">
  <controls:GridViewDataColumn.CellTemplate>
    <DataTemplate>
      <my:CustomControl Text="{Binding Field1}"/>
    </DataTemplate>
  </controls:GridViewDataColumn.CellTemplate>
</controls:GridViewDataColumn>

The CellEditTemplate works similarly.  This code works fine.  However, it is not very maintainable.  If I have 20 columns in my table that all use those same custom controls, I have to have 20 copies of this code, with only the field name changing.  If I need to change that template, such as to add a property setting to my:CustomControl, I have to edit all 20 of those copies.  

What I would like to do is make that DataTemplate a shared resource.  I have been able to do something like this with some of the other grids I've tried, but I haven't figured out how to do it with RadGridView yet.  Obviously hard-coding {Binding Field1} isn't going to work, but I don't know what binding I need to put in there to make it bind to whatever the GridViewDataColumn is bound to.  I know I can bind a column to a field by doing the following:

<controls:GridViewDataColumn Header="Field 1" DataMemberBinding="{Binding Field1}"/>

This works as well, if I don't want to use my custom controls.  I'm just not sure how to write the DataTemplates in such a way that they bind to whatever that DataMemberBinding is set to.

If this is possible, please let me know so that I can continue my evaluation of the control.

Thanks,

Jason

[Stefan Dobrev]

Hello Jason,

You can use the magic of attached behaviors to achieve your scenario. I have prepared a small example to illustrate how this can be implemented. Please find it in the attached archived file.

Sincerely yours,
Stefan Dobrev
the Telerik team

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[MiddleTommy]

I cant open the Example. So I recreated the Example and imported the files. I cant find System.Windows.Interactivity.dll
I really need to make re-usable custom CellEditors or DataColumns any help would be much appreciated.

[Vlad]

Hi,

System.Windows.Interactivity.dll can be found in the attached project Binaries folder. I've tried the example and everything worked fine - you can check the same updated with Q3 binaries.

Best wishes,
Vlad
the Telerik team

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[MiddleTommy]

Thanks
I didnt notice the binaries.
When I say I cant open the project I mean an error message pops up saying

"The project file '...' cant be opened

The project type is not supported by this installation"

I am using VS 2008 Professional. Any idea why it is not supported?
------------------EDIT------------------
I found it. The project is a silverlight project (I just assumed it would be a WPF project in a WPF Forum)

[Usame Esendir]

It doesn't work with progress bar, because ValueProperty of progress bar is in BaseType so you have to change the code in

DataMemberBindingAttachedBehavior

return (DependencyProperty)this.AssociatedObject.GetType().GetField(name, BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static).GetValue(null);

to

return (DependencyProperty)this.AssociatedObject.GetType().BaseType.GetField(name, BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Static).GetValue(null);

Hope it helps,
Usame Esendir