MVVM WPF: Reflecting a controls property to the viewmodel, when an events get triggered

Question

Okay i'm trying to understand WPF and the popular MVVM Pattern.

Now i have this issue. I'm using a ribbon control with several tabs. In my ViewModel i have a property "ActiveTab (string)" Which should reflect the currently active tab.

Since ribboncontrol doesn't have any property that shows this information i can't bind to it.

So i was thinking:

I could bind the selected event like this:

        <r:RibbonTab Label="tab1" Selected="RibbonTab_Selected"></r:RibbonTab>
        <r:RibbonTab Label="tab2" Selected="RibbonTab_Selected"></r:RibbonTab>
        <r:RibbonTab Label="tab3" Selected="RibbonTab_Selected"></r:RibbonTab>
        <r:RibbonTab Label="tab4" Selected="RibbonTab_Selected"></r:RibbonTab>
        <r:RibbonTab Label="tab5" Selected="RibbonTab_Selected"></r:RibbonTab>

Then in codebehind set the property in the viewmodel by using Activetab = sender.Label

But Then i would need a refference to my viewmodel in the codebehind of my view.

I'm trying to solve this problem without using any code behind files. (MVVM).

Now the real question: Is it somehow possible to use an eventtrigger or eventsetter. that when the selected event gets fired. A setter automaticly sets the activetab property to the sender.Label value?.

Using xaml only.

-- My excuses for my rather bad english and maybe noobish question. I'm very new at wpf =)

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UPDATE: As i just found out, there is a isSelected property on a ribbonTab.

Now i have some issues on how to bind it to the property in my viewmodel.

I tried the following code:

<Style TargetType="{x:Type r:RibbonTab}">
                <Style.Triggers>
                    <Trigger Property="IsSelected" Value="True">
                        <Setter Property="{Binding SelectedTab}" Value="{Binding RelativeSource=Self, Path=Label}" />
                    </Trigger>
                </Style.Triggers>
            </Style>

But this doesn't work:

Error   1   Cannot find the Style Property 'SelectedTab' on the type 'Microsoft.Windows.Controls.Ribbon.RibbonTab'. 

SelectedTab offcourse is in my viewmodel and not in ribbonTab ...

How can i make the setter, set the property on my viewmodel with the value of the tab? =)

Thanks in advance!!

Answer 1

The August release of the Microsoft Ribbon, the RibbonTab has a IsSelected dependency property, so you should be able to bind to that.

Answer 2

I'm surprised that the RibbonControl doesn't expose this as a bindable property, but I haven't really used it, so I'll assume you're right...

You can only do bindings to or from a dependency property and if the ribbon doesn't have an active tab dependency property then you'll need to make one yourself. You can either do this by subclassing the ribbon control into one of your own, adding the property to it and using the Selected event handlers to update it's value. On the other hand, if you're only using this on one view then you can add the property to the view instead of subclassing the ribbon and bind to that.

Either way you need to get the currently selected tab into the binding engine to be able to bind anything to it (either the label or the viewmodel) and it can only go into the engine through dependency properties. So you won't be able to do this entirely in XAML, but you will be able to do it without introducing coupling between the view and viewmodel.

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Looking at the documentation for the Microsoft ribbon control for WPF have you tried the Ribbon.SelectedItem property? It looks to me like it should give you the currently selected tab.