WPF TabControl - how to preserve control state within tab items (MVVM pattern)

Question

I am a newcomer to WPF, attempting to build a project that follows the recommendations of Josh Smith's excellent article describing The Model-View-ViewModel Design Pattern.

Using Josh's sample code as a base, I have created a simple application that contains a number of "workspaces", each represented by a tab in a TabControl. In my application, a workspace is a document editor that allows a hierarchical document to be manipulated via a TreeView control.

Although I have succeeded in opening multiple workspaces and viewing their document content in the bound TreeView control, I find that the TreeView "forgets" its state when switching between tabs. For example, if the TreeView in Tab1 is partially expanded, it will be shown as fully collapsed after switching to Tab2 and returning to Tab1. This behaviour appears to apply to all aspects of control state for all controls.

After some experimentation, I have realized that I can preserve state within a TabItem by explicitly binding each control state property to a dedicated property on the underlying ViewModel. However, this seems like a lot of additional work, when I simply want all my controls to remember their state when switching between workspaces.

I assume I am missing something simple, but I am not sure where to look for the answer. Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Tim

Update:

As requested, I will attempt to post some code that demonstrates this problem. However, since the data that underlies the TreeView is complex, I will post a simplified example that exhibits the same symtoms. Here is the XAML from the main window:

<TabControl IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem="True" ItemsSource="{Binding Path=Docs}">
    <TabControl.ItemTemplate>
        <DataTemplate>
            <ContentPresenter Content="{Binding Path=Name}" />
        </DataTemplate>
    </TabControl.ItemTemplate>

    <TabControl.ContentTemplate>
        <DataTemplate>
            <view:DocumentView />
        </DataTemplate>
    </TabControl.ContentTemplate>
</TabControl>

The above XAML correctly binds to an ObservableCollection of DocumentViewModel, whereby each member is presented via a DocumentView.

For the simplicity of this example, I have removed the TreeView (mentioned above) from the DocumentView and replaced it with a TabControl containing 3 fixed tabs:

<TabControl>
    <TabItem Header="A" />
    <TabItem Header="B" />
    <TabItem Header="C" />
</TabControl>

In this scenario, there is no binding between the DocumentView and the DocumentViewModel. When the code is run, the inner TabControl is unable to remember its selection when the outer TabControl is switched.

However, if I explicitly bind the inner TabControl's SelectedIndex property ...

<TabControl SelectedIndex="{Binding Path=SelectedDocumentIndex}">
    <TabItem Header="A" />
    <TabItem Header="B" />
    <TabItem Header="C" />
</TabControl>

... to a corresponding dummy property on the DocumentViewModel ...

public int SelecteDocumentIndex { get; set; }

... the inner tab is able to remember its selection.

I understand that I can effectively solve my problem by applying this technique to every visual property of every control, but I am hoping there is a more elegant solution.

Answer 1

The Writer sample application of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) shows how to solve your issue. It creates a new UserControl for every TabItem. So the state is preserved when the user changes the active Tab.

.

Best Regards,

jbe

Answer 2

this solution resolves this issue:

http://www.pluralsight-training.net/community/blogs/eburke/archive/2009/04/30/keeping-the-wpf-tab-control-from-destroying-its-children.aspx