How to bind StackPanel Children from a ViewModel?

Question

New to Silverlight. I'm working on a chat application where new chat messages are added to the bottom of a list. I had a working version that used as StackPanel inside a ScrollViewer and then in some code behind used StackPanel.Children.Add().

I'm trying to convert this to a View-ViewModel approach, and I can't figure out how to bind the Children of the StackPanel to any collection property. I've tried this:

<ScrollViewer Name="scrollMessages" Grid.Row="2" Margin="0,0,0,0" VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Visible">
    <StackPanel x:Name="pnlMessages" Orientation="Vertical" Children="{Binding Path=ExampleTBs}" />
</ScrollViewer>

where ExampleTBs is a collection of TextBlocks created in code. This fails XAML parsing, the Children property isn't bindable in this way.

Is the approach of binding to the StackPanel itself fixable? Should I be using a different container type? I saw another question where the guy created the entire StackPanel in code and then used a ContentPresenter...

Bottom line, I'd like to find a way to databind my view to a viewmodel using something like a StackPanel as a container where successive items will be added to the container over time. Best approach?

Answer 1

Do you need to use a StackPanel? If you use an ItemsControl instead, this still presents each chat message in a vertical list, and also allows for binding of the data.

Answer 2

Use a ListBox (or any other ItemsControl) and bind the ItemsSource property to an ObservableCollection in your ViewModel.