WPF - Elegant way of disabling and enabling different controls based on different states of the Model using MVVM

Question

I am looking for an elegant solution for the following problem.

Let's assume we have a (View)Model with the following boolean properties:

• Alpha
• Beta
• Gamma
• Delta

Next I have 5 controls on the surface that shall only be visible when a condition based on those properties are met. Of course, as soon as one of those properties is updated the change should be propagated immediatelly:

• ControlA -> Alpha && ( Beta || Gamma )
• ControlB -> Delta
• ControlC -> Delta || Beta
• ControlD -> Gamma && Alpha && Delta
• ControlE -> Alpha || Gamma

The only solution I came up with so far is using MultiValueConverters.

Example for ControlA:

<ControlA>
   <ControlA.Visibility>
      <MultiBinding Converter={StaticResource ControlAVisibilityConverter}>
          <Binding Path="Alpha"/>
          <Binding Path="Beta"/>
          <Binding Path="Gamma"/>
      </MultiBinding>
   </ControlA.Visibility>
</ControlA>

This ControlAVisibilityConverter checks for condition "Alpha && ( Beta || Gamma )" and returns the appropriate value.

It does work.. well.. but maybe you can come up with a more elegant solution?

Thank you, TwinHabit

Answer 1

Writing a converter for each rule puts your business logic two places in this case (in the converter and the view model). I suggest creating a property/flag for each control in your ViewModel with INotifyPropertyChanged events to decide whether the control is visible (or other behaviour).

Note, that when you look at my viewmodel (below) you will see that I expose properties of type bool and Visibilty.

If you need to use the property as a general rule use bool and a DataTrigger.

public bool ControlD

If you only need to control visibility you can bind to Visibility directly:

public Visibility ControlA

UPDATE: Because of the comment by @Wallstreet Programmer, I added another option to use a BooleanVisibilityConverter. I updated the fifth control below to reflect how to use a converter. I added the code for the converter at the bottom.

Here is a test Window in XAML:

<Window x:Class="ControlVisibleTrigger.Views.MainView"
  xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
  xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
  Title="Main Window" Height="400" Width="800">
  <Window.Resources>
    <Style x:Key="DropDownStyle" TargetType="TextBox">
        <Setter Property="Visibility" Value="Hidden"/>
        <Style.Triggers>
            <DataTrigger Binding="{Binding ControlC}" Value="True">
                <Setter Property="Visibility" Value="Visible"/>
            </DataTrigger>
        </Style.Triggers>
    </Style>
  </Window.Resources>
  <DockPanel>
    <Grid>
        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition/>
            <RowDefinition/>
            <RowDefinition/>
            <RowDefinition/>
            <RowDefinition/>
            <RowDefinition/>
        </Grid.RowDefinitions>
        <StackPanel Grid.Row="0">
            <CheckBox IsChecked="{Binding Path=Alpha,Mode=TwoWay}" Content="Alpha"/>
            <CheckBox IsChecked="{Binding Path=Beta,Mode=TwoWay}" Content="Beta"/>
            <CheckBox IsChecked="{Binding Path=Gamma,Mode=TwoWay}" Content="Gamma"/>
            <CheckBox IsChecked="{Binding Path=Delta,Mode=TwoWay}" Content="Delta"/>
        </StackPanel>
        <TextBox Grid.Row="1" Visibility="{Binding Path=ControlA}" Text="Binding to visibility"/>
        <Button Grid.Row="2" Visibility="{Binding Path=ControlB}" Content="Binding to visibility"/>
        <TextBox Grid.Row="3" Style="{StaticResource DropDownStyle}" Text="Using WindowResource DataTrigger"/>
        <TextBox Grid.Row="4" Text="Using Local DataTrigger">
            <TextBox.Style>
              <Style TargetType="TextBox">
                <Setter Property="Visibility" Value="Hidden"/>
                <Style.Triggers>
                    <DataTrigger Binding="{Binding ControlD}" Value="True">
                        <Setter Property="Visibility" Value="Visible"/>
                    </DataTrigger>
                </Style.Triggers>
              </Style>
            </TextBox.Style>
        </TextBox>
        <Button Grid.Row="5" 
                Content="Press me" 
                Visibility="{Binding Path=ControlE, Converter={StaticResource booleanVisibilityConverter}, ConverterParameter=True, Mode=OneWay}">
    </Grid>
  </DockPanel>
</Window>

Here is the ViewModel:

public class MainViewModel : ViewModelBase
{
  public MainViewModel()
  {
  }

  private bool _alpha = true;
  public bool Alpha
  {
     get
     {
        return _alpha;
     }
     set
     {
        _alpha = value;
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlA");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlB");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlC");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlD");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlE");
     }
  }

  private bool _beta = true;
  public bool Beta
  {
     get
     {
        return _beta;
     }
     set
     {
        _beta = value;
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlA");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlB");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlC");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlD");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlE");
     }
  }

  private bool _gamma = true;
  public bool Gamma
  {
     get
     {
        return _gamma;
     }
     set
     {
        _gamma = value;
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlA");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlB");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlC");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlD");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlE");
     }
  }

  private bool _delta = true;
  public bool Delta
  {
     get
     {
        return _delta;
     }
     set
     {
        _delta = value;
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlA");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlB");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlC");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlD");
        OnPropertyChanged("ControlE");
     }
  }

  public Visibility ControlA
  {
     get
     {
        Visibility result = Visibility.Hidden;
        if ( Alpha && (Beta || Gamma))
        {
           result = Visibility.Visible;
        }
        return result;
     }
  }

  public Visibility ControlB
  {
     get
     {
        Visibility result = Visibility.Hidden;
        if ( Delta )
        {
           result = Visibility.Visible;
        }
        return result;
     }
  }

  private bool _controlC = false;
  public bool ControlC
  {
     get
     {
        return Delta || Beta;
     }
  }

  private bool _controlD = false;
  public bool ControlD
  {
     get
     {
        return Gamma && Alpha && Delta;
     }
  }

  private bool _controlE = false;
  public bool ControlE
  {
     get
     {
        return Alpha || Gamma;
     }
  }
}

Here is the converter:

public class BooleanVisibilityConverter : IValueConverter
{
  public object Convert( object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture )
  {
    if( ( value == null ) || ( !( value is bool ) ) )
      return Binding.DoNothing;

    Visibility elementVisibility;
    bool shouldCollapse = ( ( bool )value );

    if( parameter != null )
    {
      try
      {
        bool inverse = System.Convert.ToBoolean( parameter );

        if( inverse )
          shouldCollapse = !shouldCollapse;
      }
      catch
      {
      }
    }

    elementVisibility = shouldCollapse ? Visibility.Collapsed : Visibility.Visible;
    return elementVisibility;
  }

  public object ConvertBack( object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture )
  {
    throw new NotImplementedException();
  }
}

Answer 2

Assuming that there's a business logic reason for whether or not the controls should be displayed I'd definitely have the logic stored as a bool in the ViewModel (though I'd name it according to the business logic e.g.: CriteriaA not ControlAVisible). This allows easy unit testing to ensure that the Criteria are set correctly as alpha, beta, gamma and delta change. Other than that I'd agree with Wallstreet Programmers answer (though I don't have the rep to comment or vote his response).