Binding a DynamicResource

Question

I'm trying to use a MultiBinding as the ItemsSource for a ListBox, and I want to bind a couple of collections to the MultiBinding. The collections aren't populated until after the host control (a derivation of Page) has already been instantiated. Just after being constructed, I call a method that sets up some of the data for the Page, including these collections.

Right now, I have something like this:

public void Setup()
{
    var items = MyObject.GetWithID(backingData.ID); // executes a db query to populate collection  
    var relatedItems = OtherObject.GetWithID(backingData.ID);
}

and I want to do something like this in XAML:

<Page ...

  ...

    <ListBox>
        <ListBox.ItemsSource>
            <MultiBinding Converter="{StaticResource converter}">
                <Binding Source="{somehow get items}"/>
                <Binding Source="{somehow get relatedItems}"/>
            </MultiBinding>
        </ListBox.ItemsSource>
    </ListBox>
  ...
</Page>

I know I can't use DynamicResource in a Binding, so what can I do?

Answer 1

Sounds to me like what you really want is a CompositeCollection and to setup a DataContext for your Page.

<Page x:Class="MyPage" DataContext="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource Self}}">
    <Page.Resources>
        <CollectionViewSource Source="{Binding Items}" x:Key="items" />
        <CollectionViewSource Source="{Binding RelatedItems}" x:Key="relatedItems" />
    </Page.Resources>

    <ListBox>
       <ListBox.ItemsSource>
         <CompositeCollection>
           <CollectionContainer
             Collection="{StaticResource items}" />
           <CollectionContainer
             Collection="{StaticResource relatedItems}" />
         </CompositeCollection>
       </ListBox.ItemsSource>
    </ListBox>
</Page>

The Code behind would look something like this:

public class MyPage : Page
{
    private void Setup()
    {
        Items = ...;
        RelatedItems = ...;
    }

    public static readonly DependencyProperty ItemsProperty =
        DependencyProperty.Register("Items", typeof(ReadOnlyCollection<data>), typeof(MyPage),new PropertyMetadata(false));
    public ReadOnlyCollection<data> Items
    {
        get { return (ReadOnlyCollection<data>)this.GetValue(ItemsProperty ); }
        set { this.SetValue(ItemsProperty , value); } 
    }

    public static readonly DependencyProperty RelatedItemsProperty =
        DependencyProperty.Register("RelatedItems", typeof(ReadOnlyCollection<data>), typeof(MyPage),new PropertyMetadata(false));
    public ReadOnlyCollection<data> RelatedItems
    {
        get { return (ReadOnlyCollection<data>)this.GetValue(RelatedItemsProperty ); }
        set { this.SetValue(RelatedItemsProperty , value); } 
    }
}

Edit: I remembered that CollectionContainer doesn't participate in the logical tree so you need to use a CollectionViewSource and a StaticResource.