Bind TextBox to large string in WPF using MVVM

Question

I am having a performance problem binding a large string to a a TextBox in WPF.

In the view I am binding a TextBox's Text property to the view model's Output property which is a StringBuilder.

View:

<TextBox Text="{Binding Output, Mode=OneWay}" IsReadOnly="True"/>

ViewModel:

    public StringBuilder Output
    {
        get { return _output; }
    }

As the text in the StringBuilder gets larger the performance of the binding degrades.

What's a better way to do this using MVVM?

Answer 1

One possible way of getting around delays in databinding is to use asynchrnous binding. You can do this by setting IsAsync property of your binding object :

This will of course not solve the problem of the binding taking a long time but will stop the UI from freezing whilst it does the binding.

You can also use priority binding to show a cut down version of the text (which is quick to load) whilst the larger text item is loaded. Priority binding is described on msdn - >http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms753174.aspx.