Dynamic fields dialog

Hi Samuel,

I'm assuming you meant to post this in the PropertyGrid for WPF forum. There are several places you can specify the associated property editor, but all have pros and cons so we can't really recommend one way over another.

If your generic object includes a collection of properties (i.e. it has a property defined like "List<MyProperty> Properties"), then you'd have to either implement ICustomTypeDescriptor or implement a custom DataFactory. The former is built into .NET, while the latter is specific to our PropertyGrid. The DataFactory is responsible for converting an "object" to a list of IDataAccessors, which can be an IPropertyDataAccessor or ICategoryDataAccessor.

If you have custom objects that implement IPropertyDataAccessor, you can specify the property editor there (via the ValueTemplate property). You can also use the PropertyGrid.PropertyEditors collection to use a predefined mapping, based on object type, property type, or property name. And finally, you can specify a custom DataTemplateSelector (via the PropertyGrid.ValueTemplateSelector) that will select an appropriate DataTemplate.

Hi,

Actually, I'm not intending this to be a PropertyGrid question. However, it seems to me that the concept could be similar. I'm intending to build a real WPF dialog, which takes in a dynamic object (containing a dictionary of Properties, each with its own definition of data type(brush, location (x,y), string and whatnot). The fields would be populated dynamically, depending on the number of properties, and filled with editor field(s) according to the data type.

I'm just wondering if you've come across this kind of question/problem before and your recommendations would be appreciated. Since this is not a PropertyGrid, custom DataFactory and IPropertyDataAccessor would be out of question.

Thanks.

Hi Samuel,

I understand now. The BrushPropertyEditor that you referenced in your original question is specific to the PropertyGrid. It hooks into the PropertyGrid's built-in property editor mapping to tie properties of type Brush to the BrushEditBox from our Editors for WPF product. This isn't really something you can leverage outside of the PropertyGrid.

Ultimately, you'd need to have a mapping from property type (any maybe other factors) to an associated DataTemplate. Then you'd probably want to use an ItemsControl and populate it with one or instances of ContentPresenter, whose Content property is set to your item and ContentTemplate is the correct DataTemplate. Then you'd simply build an appropriate DataTemplate, which may or may not include an instance of BrushEditBox.