How do I bind list items to an Accordian control from the Silverlight 3 Toolkit?

Question

I have a list of objects in a model. I wish to show elements of the DTO's in the list in my AccordianItem panels. The model is like this:

public class MyModel 
{ 
    public List<AnimalDTO> Items { get; set; } 

    public MyModel() 
    { 
        Items = new List<AnimalDTO> 
                    { 
                        new AnimalDTO() {Title = "Monkey", ImageUri = "Images/monkey.jpg"}, 
                        new AnimalDTO() {Title = "Cow", ImageUri = "Images/cow.jpg"}, 
                    }; 
    } 
} 
public class AnimalDTO
{
    public string Title { get; set; }
    public string LongDescription { get; set; }
    public string ImageUri { get; set; }
    public string NavigateUri { get; set; }
}

I want to show the image in the background image of AccordianItems and lay the LongDescription over a portion of the image.

If I hard code it, I can get the image in the AccordianItem thus...

<layoutToolkit:AccordionItem x:Name="Item2" Header="Item 2" Margin="0,0,10,0" AccordionButtonStyle="{StaticResource AccordionButtonStyle1}" ExpandableContentControlStyle="{StaticResource ExpandableContentControlStyle1}" HeaderTemplate="{StaticResource DataTemplate1}" BorderBrush="{x:Null}" ContentTemplate="{StaticResource CarouselContentTemplate}">
                <layoutToolkit:AccordionItem.Background>
                    <ImageBrush ImageSource="Images/cow.jpg" Stretch="None"/>
                </layoutToolkit:AccordionItem.Background>
            </layoutToolkit:AccordionItem>

When I try it with a binding like <ImageBrush ImageSource="{Binding Path={StaticResource MyContentTemplate.ImageUri}}" Stretch="None"/> or if I try it with <ImageBrush ImageSource="{Binding Path=Items[0].ImageUri}" Stretch="None"/> , it throws XamlParseException.

Edit: I'm able to get some binding of the text over hard-coded images with the following StaticResource (NOTE: I'm hard-coding Items[2], I'm not sure how to index it)

        <DataTemplate x:Key="CarouselContentTemplate">
        <Grid Width="650" Height="420">
            <Grid.RowDefinitions>
                <RowDefinition Height="0.476*"/>
                <RowDefinition Height="0.524*"/>
            </Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                <ColumnDefinition Width="150" />
            </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>

            <TextBlock Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0"
                   x:Name="Title" 
                   Text="{Binding Items[2].Title}" 
                   Foreground="Black" FontSize="12"></TextBlock>
            <TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0"
                   x:Name="LongDescription" 
                   Text="{Binding Items[2].LongDescription}"
                   TextWrapping="Wrap"FontSize="8"></TextBlock>
        </Grid>
    </DataTemplate>

Is there a way to index the Items collection in the DataTemplate? Furthermore how do I get the Image to bind rather than hard-coding them in each AccordianItem? Any help in the right direction would be appreciated, most especially how to bind and lay text over an image.

Answer 1

To bind to a collection it must be referenced with ItemsSource="{Binding Items}", where in this case Items is my collection MyModel.Items

<layoutToolkit:Accordion
        HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" 
        ExpandDirection="Right" 
        Style="{StaticResource AccordionStyle1}"
        AccordionButtonStyle="{StaticResource AccordionButtonStyle1}"
         MaxHeight="420" MaxWidth="800" 
         ItemsSource="{Binding Items}" Margin="8,0,-8,-12" Grid.Row="3"
        >
        <layoutToolkit:Accordion.ItemTemplate>
            <DataTemplate>
                <TextBlock Text="{Binding Title}"></TextBlock>
            </DataTemplate>
        </layoutToolkit:Accordion.ItemTemplate>

Note that a collection should be bound with ItemsSource, which is plural as a mnemonic. and individual members of elements are bound within control of <layoutToolkit:Accordian.ItemTemplate> Here I am showing MyCollection.Title in a TextBlock control. I shall update this with full code or a link to my blog for a full example later.