What exactly does Panel.IsItemsHost do?

Question

I cannot find any good documentation for the Panel.IstItemsHost attached property. I see plenty of examples of people setting it on the ItemsContainer template for an ItemsControl, but the un-documentation over at MSDN does not explain why or what advantages setting property confers. I have built plenty of containers that do NOT set this property, but have not yet noticed any ill effects.

Answer 1

Say I have an ItemsControl. I want to use a custom panel that swoops items in and out as you scroll; its called a SwoopPanel. Now, how do I tell the ItemsControl to use my SwoopPanel to contain the templates it creates?

The quick way is to set the ItemsPanel on the ItemsControl:

<ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
    <ItemsPanelTemplate>
      <lol:SwoopPanel />
    </ItemsPanelTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>

However, sometimes that doesn't work for you. Maybe you wish to customize how the SwoopPanel is presented in the UI, and the only way to get around this is to change the control template of the ItemsControl. Now you can add your SwoopPanel directly to the control template and, using the property, mark it as the ItemsHost that the ItemsControl will put all the templated items it creates.

<Style TargetType="ItemsControl">
  <Setter Property="Template">
    <Setter.Value>
      <ControlTemplate TargetType="ItemsControl">
        <Border CornerRadius="5">
          <ScrollViewer VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Hidden">
            <lol:SwoopPanel IsItemsHost="True"/>
          </ScrollViewer>
        </Border>
      </ControlTemplate>
    </Setter.Value>
  </Setter>
</Style>

Do you have to do it one way or the other? No. Is one more advantageous than the other? Well, the second way allows you more control of the UI, the first way is easier. Take your pick, really. I've never personally done it the second way, but I think there might be a couple of places where it might be useful.