C# how to implement databinding without Control?

Question

Is there a simple way to implement databinding when neither of both classes is of type Control?

In my case, I would like to bind a variable to a property of a custom ToolStripButton.

EDIT for clarification: when binding to a Control, I can use Control's DataBindings collection. However, I am searching for a way to bind properties regardless of the source and target Type.

EDIT: using winforms

Answer 1

Use dependency properties (your property in your ToolStripButton should be) and create a property for your variable in your other class and create a binding and set it to the property of your ToolstripButton.

I guess that's about the easiest way to do it.

EDIT: That's only for WPF...

Else implement INotifyPropertyChanged and when your variable changes, it should automatically change in your ToolStripButton.

Answer 2

You can probably do this by using Truss.

Truss provides WPF-style databinding for any class that implements INotifyPropertyChanged. It gives you a bit more flexibility in this, since it doesn't restrict the classes to being derived from a specific base class.

Answer 3

For similar behaviour like Controls being bound to object properties, for any Type you can implement the same interfaces.

Based on that thought, you can subclass ToolStripButton (or desired Type to have bindings) and implement IBindableComponent for it. This works for all kinds of source and target Types as long as they're not sealed. For example, your tool strip button:

public class BindableToolStripButton : ToolStripButton,  IBindableComponent {
    //...

This will cause the BindableToolStripButton to have its own .DataBindings property whereas the base ToolStripButton class doesn't have such a propery.

You would need to follow through on filling out implementation details using examples seen here from Microsoft for ISite, IBindableComponent, IComponent and any inherited interfaces.

Then you would add Binding instances to any instance of BindableToolStripButton.

(Note: I only have fragements so will make my first community wiki post - and we'll see how that goes... )

Answer 4

I written some basic databinding stuff through reflection. It works on any object and doesn't need to implement something special (no INotifyPropertyChanged, it just works) it is part of my editor at http://github.com/filipkunc/opengl-editor-cocoa look at HotChocolate/Bindings (like re-implementation of Cocoa KVC, KVO into .NET) folder. You can see it in action in HotChocolateTest project.