Is it possible to bind a name property of an element ?

Question

I have a grid with repeated columns with same style but different names the name are important for me in code behind so i decided to create a template to repeat the element and read the names from an XML file but i found out i can not use binding for name property please kindly help me sooooooooooooooooooooooooooon

here is a part of my code:

<DataTemplate  x:Key="weekItemTemplate">
            <Gridx:Name="{Binding XPath=Container}" Style="{DynamicResource GridStyle}">
                <Grid.RowDefinitions>
                    <RowDefinition Height="0.9*"/>
                    <RowDefinition Height="0.1*"/>
                </Grid.RowDefinitions>
                <Rectangle x:Name="Rectangle"  Grid.Row="0" Margin="0,0,0,0.063"/>
                <TextBlock x:Name="Christian"  HorizontalAlignment="Left" Width="18.52" Grid.Row="1" Margin="1,0,0,0"><Run Text="08"/></TextBlock>
                <TextBlock x:Name="Hejri" Grid.Row="1"  HorizontalAlignment="Right" Width="9.773" Margin="0,0,0,0"><Run Text="۰۱"/></TextBlock>
                <TextBlock x:Name="Persian"  Margin="1,0,0,0" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Width="10"><Run Text="۰"/></TextBlock>
            </Grid>
        </DataTemplate>
    </Window.Resources>
    <Grid Margin="0,10,0,0">
        <Grid.DataContext>
            <XmlDataProvider x:Name="TeamData" Source="weekdays.xml" XPath="days/day" />
        </Grid.DataContext>
        <ListView x:Name="TeamsListBox" DockPanel.Dock="Left"
                     ItemsSource="{Binding}"
                     ItemTemplate="{StaticResource weekItemTemplate}"
                     IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem="True"
                     Visibility="Visible" SelectionMode="Single" />

Answer 1

After thinking about it once more, you could define a new attached property for your columns and bind your names from the XML file to this property. Then in your code behind you can access this attached property instead of the name property. Does this help?!

EDIT:
I was talking about an attached dependency property. Something like this:

public static class ColumnProps
{
    public static readonly DependencyProperty MyCustomNameProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached(
            "MyCustomName",
            typeof(string),
            typeof(ColumnProps)
        );

    public static void SetMyCustomName(DependencyObject obj, string newValue)
    {
        obj.SetValue(MyCustomNameProperty, newValue);
    }

    public static string GetMyCustomName(DependencyObject obj)
    {
        return (string)obj.GetValue(MyCustomNameProperty);
    }
}

You can then set this property on your grid like so:

<Grid xmlns:local="...">
    <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
        <ColumnDefinition local:ColumnProps.MyCustomName="someName" Width="100"/>
        <!-- ... -->
    </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
    <!-- ... -->
</Grid>

where xmlns:local should refer to the assembly and namespace where the ColumnProps type is defined.

Answer 2

You cannot bind to the name property (and thus change it at runtime), since it is used in the generated code (BAML and generated code-behind) as field names.

Answer 3

Code-behind wants names to be statically resolvable. That said, if the names are really dynamic, how could you write code that depends on the names in all cases? Perhaps there is a way you can modify the design so that you don't need to access the weekItem views directly, but can rather work with a class that models how the weekItem view behaves. For instance, if you need to register events or set certain properties, you could instead use a Command binding to a 'WeekItemViewModel' class and expose properties that reflect what you'd like the view to convey.

Once you do this, you've eliminated your dependency on specific names, which means you can dynamically load your data and instantiate these WeekItemViewModel classes, which insulate you from the details of how the view is actually laid out. Your code can focus more on how it wants to interact and less on how you wire up the code-behind to your specific visuals.