WPF Databinding combobox to a list<string>

Question

I am having a difficult time trying to bind my property which is of type List to my combobox through XAML.

public List<string> MyProperty  { get; set; }

The following XAML binding does not work:

<ComboBox Name="cboDomainNames" ItemsSource="{Binding Path=MyProperty}"/> 

But the following assignment:

cboDomainNames.ItemsSource = MyProperty;

works perfectly. What i am missing here?

Solution 1

Posting my comment back to mark the answer.

My DataContext was set, BUT it was set after InitializeComponent(). I thought that could be the problem. Then I realized that as I am binding through xaml, when the view loads, the binding happens to the property which is empty.

The property gets populated when the view is ready after its loaded (i.e on _presenter.OnViewReady()). Since it's not an observable collection nothing gets added to the combobox. Specifying it from my code behind works, because at that time the data exists in the property.

Solution 2

Assume you have a List<Foo> called Foos in your window / page. Foo has a property Name. Now you set up the binding in XAML as follows:

<ComboBox ItemsSource="{Binding Path=Foos}"
DisplayMemberPath="Name"
SelectedValuePath="Name"
SelectedValue="{Binding Path=Foo}"
/>

This is based on this SO question. Read this (WPF DataBinding overview) as a good foundation for databinding in WPF.

Comments

[ioWint]

True, but presently i am interested with a property of List<string>! if code behind assignment of ItemsSource hasnt worked then i wouldnt be more confused! would have gone with a custom entity thinking i always need the DisplayMemberPath!

[ioWint]

i tried this Mario! but hard luck! i couldnt get it populated. view is inheriting from a baseView, so instead of window i put my baseView! it still doesnt get binded!

[JWP]

Wasn't a solution to binding to a List<string>