Dynamically displaying Items using FlipView and DataTemplateSelector in WinRT

Question

I'm using Flipview and a DataTemplateSelector to determine at runtime which DataTemplate to apply to show items in my control.

I have two DataTemplate's, one is static and the second can be used by a undetermined number of items.

Currently

My first view displays: - "This is a test - Content"

Followed by 18 other views that look like this: - "http://www.google.com/ 0" - "http://www.google.com/ 1" - "http://www.google.com/ 2" - and so on until 17

I want

The items "http://www.google.com/ " to be grouped as 3 on a view.

For example the second view will display:

• "http://www.google.com/ 0, http://www.google.com/ 1, http://www.google.com/ 2"

The third view will display:

• "http://www.google.com/ 3, http://www.google.com/ 4, http://www.google.com/ 5"

And so on..

Bellow is my code:

FlipViewDemo.xaml

<Page.Resources>
    <DataTemplate x:Key="FirstDataTemplate">
        <Grid>
            <TextBlock Text="{Binding Content}" Margin="10,0,18,18"></TextBlock>
        </Grid>
    </DataTemplate>
    <DataTemplate x:Key="SecondDataTemplate">
        <TextBox Text="{Binding Url}"></TextBox>
    </DataTemplate>
    <local:MyDataTemplateSelector x:Key="MyDataTemplateSelector"
                FirstTextTemplate="{StaticResource FirstDataTemplate}"
                SecondTextTemplate="{StaticResource SecondDataTemplate}">
    </local:MyDataTemplateSelector>
</Page.Resources>
<Grid Background="{ThemeResource ApplicationPageBackgroundThemeBrush}">
    <FlipView x:Name="itemGridView" ItemTemplateSelector="{StaticResource MyDataTemplateSelector}" 
    Margin="265,220,284,162">
    </FlipView>
</Grid>

FlipViewDemo.xaml.cs

public sealed partial class FlipViewDemo : Page
{
    public FlipViewDemo()
    {
        this.InitializeComponent();

        var items = new List<BaseClass>();

        items.Add(new FirstItem
        {
            Content="This is a test - Content"
        });

        for (int i = 0; i < 18; i++)
        {
            items.Add(new SecondItem
            {
                Url = "http://www.google.com/ " + i.ToString() 
            });
        }
        itemGridView.ItemsSource = items;
    }
}
public class BaseClass
{
}

public class FirstItem : BaseClass
{
    public string Content { get; set; }
}

public class SecondItem : BaseClass
{
    public string Url { get; set; }
}

public class MyDataTemplateSelector : DataTemplateSelector
{
    public DataTemplate FirstTextTemplate { get; set; }
    public DataTemplate SecondTextTemplate { get; set; }

    protected override DataTemplate SelectTemplateCore(object item,
                                                       DependencyObject container)
    {
        if (item is FirstItem)
            return FirstTextTemplate;
        if (item is SecondItem)
            return SecondTextTemplate;

        return base.SelectTemplateCore(item, container);
    }
}

I'm thinking that maybe this can be achieved with groups and list view. But I'm not sure how this can be done.

Probably it is a stupid question but, using Google, I can't find an answer. Also english is not my native language; please excuse typing errors.

Answer 1

I think the way to achieve what you are looking for is to expose the data in a way that better represents what you want to display. Then, you can use nested controls to display it. I just threw this together (using my own test data). It is probably not exactly what you want, but it should help you figure things out.

ViewModel
Here I made a helper method to build the collection with sub-collections that each have 3 items.

class FlipViewDemo
{
    private List<object> mData;

    public IEnumerable<object> Data
    {
        get { return mData; }
    }

    public FlipViewDemo()
    {
        mData = new List<object>();
        mData.Add("Test String");
        for (int i = 0; i < 18; ++i)
        {
            AddData("Test Data " + i.ToString());
        }
    }

    private void AddData(object data)
    {
        List<object> current = mData.LastOrDefault() as List<object>;
        if (current == null || current.Count == 3)
        {
            current = new List<object>();
            mData.Add(current);
        }
        current.Add(data);
    }
}

class TemplateSelector : DataTemplateSelector
{
    public DataTemplate ListTemplate { get; set; }
    public DataTemplate ObjectTemplate { get; set; }

    public override DataTemplate SelectTemplate(object item, DependencyObject container)
    {
        if (item is List<object>) return ListTemplate;
        return ObjectTemplate;
    }
}

Xaml
Here I use an ItemsControl to vertically stack the items in the data. Each item is either a list of three objects or a single object. I use a FlipView for each of the lists of three objects and a simple ContentPresenter for the single objects.

<Page.Resources>
    <DataTemplate x:Key="ListTemplate">
        <FlipView
            ItemsSource="{Binding}">
            <FlipView.ItemTemplate>
                <DataTemplate>
                    <ContentPresenter
                        Margin="0 0 10 0"
                        Content="{Binding}" />
                </DataTemplate>
            </FlipView.ItemTemplate>
        </FlipView>
    </DataTemplate>
    <DataTemplate x:Key="ObjectTemplate">
        <ContentPresenter
            Margin="0 0 10 0"
            Content="{Binding}" />
    </DataTemplate>
    <local:TemplateSelector
        x:Key="TemplateSelector"
        ListTemplate="{StaticResource ListTemplate}"
        ObjectTemplate="{StaticResource ObjectTemplate}" />
</Page.Resources>

<ItemsControl
    ItemsSource="{Binding Data}"
    ItemTemplateSelector="{StaticResource TemplateSelector}" />

Note: You usually would not need a template selector for something like this, but since you need to select between a List<T> and an Object, there is no way I know of to recognize the difference using only the DataTemplate.TargetType property from Xaml due to List<t> being a generic type. (I tried {x:Type collections:List`1} and it did not work.)

Answer 2

You need to group items in viewmodel, and databind ItemsSource to the groups. In flipview's itemtemplate you display items in group.

public class PageGroup : PageBase {
    public ObservableColection<BaseClass> Items { get; set; }
}

public ObservableCollection<PageBase> Pages { get; set; }

<FlipView ItemsSource="{Binding Pages}">
     <FlipView.ItemTemplate>
         <DataTemplate DataType="local:PageGroup">
             <ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding Items}"
                           ItemTemplateSelector="{StaticResource MyDataTemplateSelector}" />
         </DataTemplate>
     </FlipView.ItemTemplate>
 </FlipView>

In order to display first page differently from others:

public class FirstPage : PageBase {
    public string Title { get; }
}

Pages.Insert(0, new FirstPage());

and you need to use another datatemplaeselector or impicit datatemplates in FlipView to differentiate between FirstPage and PageGroup

<FlipView ItemsSource="{Binding Pages}" 
          ItemTemplateSelector="{StaticResource PageTemplateSelector}" />