WPF ContextMenu

Question

I am using mvvm in a wpf app. I have a ContextMenu inside of a listview and when I right click a listviewitem i want a contextmenu to display a list of Contacts.

The following just gives me a contextmenu with no content. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

<ListView Grid.Row="3"
            ItemsSource="{Binding Path=Phones}"
            SelectedItem="{Binding Phones.SelectedItem}"
            Height="100">
    <ListView.ItemContainerStyle>
        <Style TargetType="{x:Type ListViewItem}">
            <Setter Property="ContextMenu" Value="{StaticResource ContactMenu}"/>
        </Style>
    </ListView.ItemContainerStyle>
    <ListView.View>
        <GridView>
            <GridViewColumn Header="Phone" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=PhoneNumber, StringFormat=(000) 000-0000}"/>
            <GridViewColumn Header="Type" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=PhoneType.Type}"/>
            <GridViewColumn Header="Contacts" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=Contacts.Count}"/>
            <GridViewColumn Header="Notes" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path= Notes.Count}"/>
            <GridViewColumn Header="Priority" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=Priority}"/>
        </GridView>
    </ListView.View>
</ListView>


<UserControl.Resources>
    <Style TargetType="{x:Type ListViewItem}">
        <Setter Property="Background" Value="{Binding SourceType, Converter={StaticResource SourceGroupConverter}}"/>
    </Style>
    <ContextMenu x:Key="ContactMenu" ItemsSource="{Binding Contacts}" >
        <ContextMenu.ItemTemplate>
            <DataTemplate>
                <MenuItem Header="{Binding Path=FirstName}"/>
            </DataTemplate>
    </ContextMenu>
</UserControl.Resources>

UPDATE:

I figured it out, I had a specialized collection that caused the binding path to be incorrect.

Thanks.

Answer 1

The context menu does not exist within the visual tree of your page, so it does inherit the data context. Try setting the DataContext directly on the ContextMenu.

Answer 2

@John - How can I Set the ListViewItems DataContext as the DataContext of my context menu?

Basically I want to set the visibility of menu item based on one property of my entity(List is ItemSource of ListView).

Answer 3

I was missing the answer from Jose how he circumvented the problem as well, but was able to figure it out by myself.

For me, wrapping the model into a viewmodel class with accessors helped.

For example:

ObservableCollection<CtxItemViewModel> ctxItems = new ObservableCollection<CtxItemViewModel>();
CtxItem c = new CtxItem();
c.Name = "Hello World";
ctxItems.Add(new CtxItemViewModel(c));

and inside the ViewModel:

public string Name {
   get { return _model.Name; }
   set { _model.Name = value; }
}

Adding the accessors helped me with binding. Hope this helps others as well.