Databinding where the data is of type UIElement

Question

I have a DataGrid bound to a collection view model. The element view model has a property called UI of type UIElement. The scenario is that I want the generated UIElement to be bound.

So for example (imaginary toy example), say the UIElement is a TextBlock with a text Foo, then I want the DataGrid to have rows of TextBlock's with the text Foo.

The reason why I want this is not important here.

So how might one databind to a property of type UIElement where the UIElement is injected as the databound content?

Answer 1

Well, you can just go ahead and do it I guess.

This small piece of code pretty much does what you want i believe..

XAML:

<DataGrid ItemsSource="{Binding Items}" AutoGenerateColumns="False">
    <DataGrid.Columns>
        <DataGridTemplateColumn>
            <DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate>
                <DataTemplate>
                    <ContentControl Content="{Binding UI}" />
                </DataTemplate>
            </DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate>
        </DataGridTemplateColumn>
    </DataGrid.Columns>
</DataGrid>

Code-behind:

public partial class MainWindow : Window
{
    public List<Model> Items { get; set; }

    public MainWindow()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        var textblock = new TextBlock();
        textblock.Text = "I'm a textblock";

        var button = new Button();
        button.Content = "I'm a button";

        var combobox = new ComboBox();
        combobox.Items.Add("Item1");
        combobox.Items.Add("Item2");

        this.Items = new List<Model>(new[] { 
            new Model(textblock),
            new Model(button), 
            new Model(combobox)
        });

        this.DataContext = this;    
    }

    public class Model
    {
        public UIElement UI { get; set; }

        public Model(UIElement ui)
        {
            this.UI = ui;
        }
    }
}