DataBinding HubTiles
In an earlier post I looked at adding data binding to a single HubTile control. In this post I'm going to take that to the next logical step and show you how to use data binding to create a dynamic set of HubTiles.
Like every Windows Phone control, it is possible to bind the properties of the HubTile control to values in a DataSource, such as a List or ObservableCollection. These DataSources could be located in the ViewModel portion of your app if you are using the MVVM pattern, but for this example we’ll bind our HubTiles to a local List.
We'll reuse the HubTileItem class we built in the earlier post, but instead of creating just one item, we'll be building and data binding to a List<HubTileItem> object. The easy way to do this is to declare a local List and then call a method that populates this List with values when the page loads.
Firstly, create a property named HubTiles, which will be of type List<HubTileItem>. This will hold our HubTileItems and will be used to data bind to the ListView.
private List<HubTileItem> hubTiles;
public List<HubTileItem> HubTiles
{
get { return hubTiles; }
}
Next, create a method to add some items into our List of HubTileItems and call this method in the page constructor.
// Constructor
public MainPage()
{
InitializeComponent();
PopulateHubTiles();
}
private void PopulateHubTiles()
{
hubTiles = new List<HubTileItem>();
hubTiles.Add(
new HubTileItem
{
Title = "Sam",
Message = "Yosemite Sam",
ImageUri = new Uri("/Assets/Images/Yosemite-Sam.jpg", UriKind.Relative)
});
...
hubTiles.Add(
new HubTileItem
{
Title = "Wiley",
Message = "Wiley Coyote",
ImageUri = new Uri("/Assets/Images/Wiley-Coyote.jpg", UriKind.Relative)
});
}
In XAML, create a new ListBox and add our data-bound HubTile to its ItemTemplate.
<ListBox Grid.Row="0" Name="AvatarListView">
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<toolkit:HubTile Margin="12,12,0,0" x:Name="MyHubTile"
Title="{Binding Title}"
Message="{Binding Message}"
Source="{Binding ImageUri}">
</toolkit:HubTile>
</DataTemplate>
</ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>
Once again we'll override the OnNavigatedTo event and add the code to assign our List property as the ItemsSource for the ListView.
protected override void OnNavigatedTo(NavigationEventArgs e)
{
AvatarListView.ItemsSource = HubTiles;
base.OnNavigatedTo(e);
}
Run the app and you should see a nice list of HubTiles running down the page.
The long list of HubTiles is probably not what you were expecting, but thankfully the Windows Phone Toolkit provides another control, called the WrapPanel that we can use to layout our tiles in a more visually appealing manner.
The WrapPanel is much like a StackPanel, but lays out items in both directions, that is Top-Bottom and Left-Right.
To utilise the WrapPanel in our ListView, all we need to do is add it as the ItemsPaneltemplate and set the orientation to Horizontal. The WrapPanel with then lay out the HubTiles Left-Right, then downwards.
<ListBox Grid.Row="0" Name="AvatarListView">
<ListBox.ItemsPanel>
<ItemsPanelTemplate>
<toolkit:WrapPanel Orientation="Horizontal" />
</ItemsPanelTemplate>
</ListBox.ItemsPanel>
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<toolkit:HubTile Margin="12,12,0,0" x:Name="MyHubTile"
Title="{Binding Title}"
Message="{Binding Message}"
Source="{Binding ImageUri}">
</toolkit:HubTile>
</DataTemplate>
</ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>
The result will be a nice little grid of HubTiles that will no-doubt make your app the talk of the town.
