Databinding with new WPF datagrid and typed datasets: Possible?

by: vbturboPosted on 2008-12-23 at 12:04:07ID: 23236194

Have you had a look at the xceed grid

download the express edtion wich is free
http://xceed.com/Grid_WPF_Intro.html

its very well documented and implements almost every aspect of databinding
by code as your familiar with

also the tool expression blend (graphical design of the GUI) supports/build the
dynamic databinding into the xaml code.

perhaps this might interrests you also
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480226.aspx

vbturbo

by: kkammPosted on 2008-12-23 at 15:07:43ID: 23237584

The Xceed grid looks quite impressive, but I don't want to commit development time to a component that will eventually require a talk with the purchasing department. :) Express looks good, but if the dev time gets committed to it, then it would be with the Pro version.

What I really need is verification that the MS WPF datagrid will handle a row edit event automatically and forward the dirty row to a corresponding tableadapter that will, in turn, update a SQL table on the backend. If the framework will not do that then I need to know what best practices are involved to forward changed rows to the corresponding tableadapter.

by: ahman_raPosted on 2008-12-31 at 09:03:58ID: 23271317

ok, here is a snippet of what we used to make this work. In the background is a call to fill the collection referenced here. As long as you have an event handler to update the collection, it should update your form.

The part in the ListView.Resources allows you to place an arrow at the top of the header that is clicked. But you have to wire the handler yourself to make it sort.

With a DataContext bound somewhere "up stream" on your WPF stack, you should be able to easily update items and have them shown here.

<GroupBox Margin="10" Grid.Row="1">
            <GroupBox.Header>
                <Label>Source</Label>
            </GroupBox.Header>
            <WrapPanel>
                <ListView Name="SourceGrid" Margin="1" MinHeight="20" MinWidth="20" SelectionMode="Multiple"
                           ItemsSource="{Binding JobCollection}" 
                           GridViewColumnHeader.Click="OnSourceColumnHeaderClick">
                    <ListView.Resources>
                        <DataTemplate x:Key="HeaderTemplateDescending">
                            <DockPanel>
                                <TextBlock HorizontalAlignment="Center" Text="{Binding}" />
                                <Path x:Name="arrow" StrokeThickness="1" Fill="DarkGray" Data="M 5,10 L 15,10 L 10,5" />
                            </DockPanel>
                        </DataTemplate>
                        <DataTemplate x:Key="HeaderTemplateAscending">
                            <DockPanel>
                                <TextBlock HorizontalAlignment="Center" Text="{Binding}"/>
                                <Path x:Name="arrow" StrokeThickness="1" Fill="DarkGray" Data="M 5,5 L 10,10 L 15,5" />
                            </DockPanel>
                        </DataTemplate>
                    </ListView.Resources>
                    <ListView.View>
                        <GridView >
                            <GridViewColumn Width="140" Header="Task ID" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding JobId}" />
                            <GridViewColumn Width="140" Header="Title" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Title}" />
                            <GridViewColumn Width="140" Header="Location Path" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding LocationPath}" />
                            <GridViewColumn Width="140" Header="Work Type" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding WorkTypeValue}" />
                            <GridViewColumn Width="140" Header="Status" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Status}" />
                            <GridViewColumn Width="140" Header="Assigned To" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding AssignedTo}" />
                            <GridViewColumn Width="140" Header="Created Date" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding CreatedDate}" />
                            <GridViewColumn Width="140" Header="Created By" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding CreatedBy}" />
                        </GridView>
                        
                    </ListView.View>
                    
                </ListView>
            </WrapPanel>
        </GroupBox>

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by: ahman_raPosted on 2008-12-31 at 09:05:13ID: 23271327

Forgot to mention, the headers here are bound to the fields in the collection that is referenced.

by: kkammPosted on 2009-01-01 at 17:09:16ID: 23277111

ahman,

Thanks for the code.

Part of the disconnect for me in WPF typed dataset databinding is the apparent need for an additional business object to process changes made from within the WPF datagrid.

If I make changes to a table in a typed dataset directly via code, the corresponding table adapter will update the SQL database. If I make changes to a cell in a bound WPF datagrid, where the data context is set to the typed dataset, and the .AutoGenerateColumns property for the grid is set to 'True', no changes propagate to the table adapter.

As it appears to me, I have to create a collection to hold the values from the table in my dataset that I want to display in the WPF datagrid. I can then bind that collection to my grid and any changes made to the grid are updated in the collection. When the collection is changed, I can handle the event for the change and put my table adapter update code in the handler for that.

Is this accurate?

It seems that every example I come across for this involves data held in collections that are created at runtime, but does not help when thousands of rows of data from a SQL query are involved.

by: vbturboPosted on 2009-01-02 at 02:22:46ID: 23278320

Hi

have you had a look at this
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/WPFDataGrid.aspx

vbturbo

by: ahman_raPosted on 2009-01-02 at 06:40:27ID: 23279557

kkamm,

That is what we do here. We created an event handler to take new rows created in the grid and update the database. Since we have only played with it in local tests, I will have to try and see if I can populate the database with thousands of random data and seehow that works.

I have not played much with vbturbo's link. I have the toolkit, but have been on another project that didnt need it. It would be a good thing to play with. But remember, it is a work in progress. Some tools are great, others just miss.

by: kkammPosted on 2009-01-06 at 14:14:22ID: 23310064

I found something that may help.

You can't bind directly to a Datatable object, but you can bind to its Defaultview property. Defaultview implements the IBindingList interface, which provides the WPF framework with change notifications for row additions and deletions.

I will see if I can get a datagrid cell edit to propagate to the database through this.

by: kkammPosted on 2009-01-07 at 09:10:41ID: 23316893

I am now getting a binding error on the primary key column for the datagrid:

A TwoWay or OneWayToSource binding cannot work on the read-only property 'UniqueID' of type 'System.Data.DataRowView'."

I tried OneWay binding, to no avail:

<dg:DataGridTextColumn
Header="UID"
Binding="{Binding Mode=OneWay ,Path=UniqueID }" >
</dg:DataGridTextColumn>

I also have a ListView control displaying the same data and it did not throw an error on it's primary key binding.

by: kkammPosted on 2009-01-12 at 06:49:49ID: 23353599

I have something that seems to be working.

I set my datagrid itemsSource to the DefaultView of the table I am working with:

Me.MyDataGrid.ItemsSource = dsWHOEMR_DEV.TestTable.DefaultView

I then bound my datagrid columns to the corresponding fields from the table:

<dg:DataGrid
Margin="10,10,15,1"
Name="MyDataGrid"
AutoGenerateColumns="False">
<dg:DataGrid.Columns>
<dg:DataGridTextColumn
Header="PatID"
Binding="{Binding Path=PatID}">
</dg:DataGridTextColumn>
<dg:DataGridTextColumn
Header="Comments"
Binding="{Binding Path=Comments}">
</dg:DataGridTextColumn>
</dg:DataGrid.Columns>
</dg:DataGrid>

On the datagrid SelectionChanged event handler I processed the update:

Private Sub MyDataGrid_SelectionChanged(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Controls.SelectionChangedEventArgs) Handles MyDataGrid.SelectionChanged

Using dtChanges As TestTableDataTable = CType(dsWHOEMR_DEV.TestTable.GetChanges, Entities.WHOEMR_DEVDataSet.TestTableDataTable)

If Not dtChanges Is Nothing Then
Using ta As New TestTableTableAdapter
If ta.Update(dtChanges) > 0 Then
dsWHOEMR_DEV.Merge(dtChanges)
dsWHOEMR_DEV.AcceptChanges()
Else
Debug.WriteLine("row NOT updated")
End If
End Using
End If
End Using
End Sub

The dataset Merge method was important to get the changes made in the grid to show up in the local dataset table. AcceptChanges was used to reset the Rowstate for the affected rows.

Ahamn, is this how you are doing this?

by: ahman_raPosted on 2009-01-16 at 09:47:44ID: 23395322

I will have to look at it this weekend, but I think we have another event that kicks the DataContextChanged event to catch changes outside the interface and bring them in that way. I know we use this to refresh elements in other programs, but we use collections on those without a database tied to the collection.

by: kkammPosted on 2009-01-26 at 07:38:56ID: 23467507

Dim myBinding As New Binding
myBinding.Source = DAL.ObjectFactory.GetDataset("PatIDDataset1").TestTable
myBinding.Path = New System.Windows.PropertyPath("PatID")
Dim NewColumn As New Microsoft.Windows.Controls.DataGridTextColumn
NewColumn.Binding = myBinding
NewColumn.Header = "PatID"
Me.MyDataGrid.Columns.Add(NewColumn) Dim myBinding As New Binding
myBinding.Source = DAL.ObjectFactory.GetDataset("PatIDDataset1").TestTable
myBinding.Path = New System.Windows.PropertyPath("PatID")
Dim NewColumn As New Microsoft.Windows.Controls.DataGridTextColumn
NewColumn.Binding = myBinding
NewColumn.Header = "PatID"
Me.MyDataGrid.Columns.Add(NewColumn)

by: kkammPosted on 2009-01-26 at 08:05:51ID: 23467834

Disregard that last post. I was a little quick on the draw with that one... :(

This is related to the question at hand, but I may have to post as a new question. Points will be awarded if I can get some information on this though.

I managed to get the binding done via XAML:

<dg:DataGrid
Name="MyDataGrid"
AutoGenerateColumns="False">
<dg:DataGrid.Columns>
<dg:DataGridTextColumn
Header="PatID"
Binding="{Binding Path=PatID}">
</dg:DataGridTextColumn>
</dg:DataGrid.Columns>
</dg:DataGrid>

What I would like is to do the same operation with straight VB code. Here is what I tried, but it did not yield the same results. I got the right number of rows, but they did not contain any data. What am I missing here?

Dim myBinding As New Binding
'table in typed dataset that contains data I want to display myBinding.Source=DAL.ObjectFactory.GetDataset("PatIDDataset1").TestTable
'column from dataset table I want to bind to and display in my grid myBinding.Path = New System.Windows.PropertyPath("PatID")
Dim NewColumn As New Microsoft.Windows.Controls.DataGridTextColumn
NewColumn.Binding = myBinding
NewColumn.Header = "PatID"
Me.MyDataGrid.Columns.Add(NewColumn)

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Cbgv%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Cbgv%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Cbgv%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><style></style>

by: kkammPosted on 2009-01-26 at 08:10:20ID: 23467889

Never mind...let me post a new question and clean this up.

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Databinding with new WPF datagrid and typed datasets: Possible?

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