DataTemplate Selectors

Updated on Sep 23, 2026

This article shows how to conditionally load different ReadOnly/Edit DataTemplates, according to RadDataForm’s CurrentItem.

DataTemplate selectors affect both RadDataForm’s auto-generated fields and manually defined ones.

For this tutorial we will extend our example from the Getting Started documentation article by defining custom edit templates in XAML (Example 1).

Example 1: Defining Custom DataTemplateSelector Templates in the EditTemplateSelector

XAML

<Grid>
    <Grid.Resources>
        <DataTemplate x:Key="MyTemplate">
            <Grid>
                <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                    <ColumnDefinition/>
                    <ColumnDefinition/>
                </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                <Grid.RowDefinitions>
                    <RowDefinition/>
                    <RowDefinition/>
                </Grid.RowDefinitions>
                <telerik:DataFormDataField Label="First Name" DataMemberBinding="{Binding FirstName, Mode=TwoWay}" />
                <telerik:DataFormDataField Grid.Column="1" Label="Salary" DataMemberBinding="{Binding Salary, Mode=TwoWay}" />
            </Grid>
        </DataTemplate>
    </Grid.Resources>
    <telerik:RadDataForm x:Name="DataForm1" AutoGenerateFields="True" ReadOnlyTemplate="{StaticResource MyTemplate}">

        <telerik:RadDataForm.EditTemplateSelector>
            <my:EmployeesEditTemplateSelector>
                <my:EmployeesEditTemplateSelector.SmallSalaryTemplate>
                    <DataTemplate>
                        <StackPanel>
                            <telerik:DataFormDataField Label="First Name"  
														   DataMemberBinding="{Binding FirstName}"/>
                            <telerik:DataFormDataField Foreground="Black" 
														   Label="Salary" 
														   Background="Blue" 
														   DataMemberBinding="{Binding Salary}" />
                        </StackPanel>
                    </DataTemplate>
                </my:EmployeesEditTemplateSelector.SmallSalaryTemplate>
                <my:EmployeesEditTemplateSelector.BigSalaryTemplate>
                    <DataTemplate>
                        <StackPanel>
                            <telerik:DataFormDataField Label="First Name" 
														   DataMemberBinding="{Binding FirstName}"/>
                            <telerik:DataFormDataField Foreground="White" 
														   Label="Salary" 
														   Background="Red" 
														   DataMemberBinding="{Binding Salary}" />
                        </StackPanel>
                    </DataTemplate>
                </my:EmployeesEditTemplateSelector.BigSalaryTemplate>
            </my:EmployeesEditTemplateSelector>
        </telerik:RadDataForm.EditTemplateSelector>
    </telerik:RadDataForm>
</Grid>

Here we define a DataTemplateSelector(Example 2):

Example 2: Defining a DataTemplateSelector

C#

public class EmployeesEditTemplateSelector : DataTemplateSelector
{
    public override DataTemplate SelectTemplate(object item, DependencyObject container)
    {
        Employee employee = item as Employee;
        if (employee == null)
        {
            return null;
        }
        else if (employee.Salary > 2500)
        {
            return this.BigSalaryTemplate;
        }
        else
        {
            return this.SmallSalaryTemplate;
        }
    }
    public DataTemplate BigSalaryTemplate { get; set; }
    public DataTemplate SmallSalaryTemplate { get; set; }
}

VB.NET

Public Class EmployeesEditTemplateSelector
	Inherits System.Windows.Controls.DataTemplateSelector
	Public Overrides Function SelectTemplate(ByVal item As Object, ByVal container As DependencyObject) As DataTemplate
		Dim employee As Employee = TryCast(item, Employee)
		If employee Is Nothing Then
			Return Nothing
		ElseIf employee.Salary > 2500 Then
			Return Me.BigSalaryTemplate
		Else
			Return Me.SmallSalaryTemplate
		End If
	End Function
	Public Property BigSalaryTemplate() As DataTemplate
	Public Property SmallSalaryTemplate() As DataTemplate
End Class

As a result when RadDataForm is in edit mode the background color of the Salary DataFormDataField will change to red (Figure 1), when the employee's salary is greater than 2500 or blue when it is less.

Figure 1: Result of DataTemplateSelector

An analogical approach should be used to set a ReadOnlyTemplateSelector.

Find a runnable project of the previous example in the WPF Samples GitHub repository.