Binding to DataContext outside current ItemsSource context

Question

Hello, I have a DataSet bound to the Window.DataContext; I also have a DataGrid

<DataGrid ItemsSource={Binding Tables[Items]}>
    <DataGrid.Columns>
        <DataGridTextBoxColumn Header={Binding Path=DataContext.Tables[Names]/Test, RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType={x:Type Window}}} />
    </DataGrid.Columns>
</DataGrid>

Basically, I'm trying to bind the Header of that column to DataTable "Names", Column "Test", first row.

However, I can't get it right. Note that I can bind it fine outside the DataGrid. The Grid's ItemsSource changes the data context and I don't know how to refer outside to the original DataContext.

It seems that the binding succeeds; but the problem is that the current item (first row) of the Tables[Names] in the Window.DataContext got lost.

If I make the DataSet static and access it via {x:Static local:dataset} then things work fine. But I can't use static datasets because there will be multiple instances (multi-user).

Can anyone please point me in the right direction?

Answer 1

Don't know if this will work for you situation, but you could try something like this: 1) Give your Window a Name attribute e.g. Name=ZeWindow. 2) Bind your DataGridTextBoxColumn Header like this:

<DataGridTextBoxColumn Header="{Binding Path=DataContext.Tables[Names]/Text, ElementName=ZeWindow}"/>

So basically, instead of binding to the DataContext of the DataGrid, you bind to the DataContext of the UIElement with Name=ZeWindow.

P.S.: I'm pretty new to WPF, so this might not work with the Window, but I did something similar using UserControls