Common Usage Scenarios

The various shell UI controls like ShellTreeListBox and ShellListView can be mixed and matched to fit into many useful scenarios.

File Explorer

A file explorer is where a ShellTreeListBox control is on the left side of the window, and a ShellListView control is on the right side, often with a splitter in between them. A path TextBox or breadcrumb control might also appear above both controls.

The path TextBox's Text property is bound to the ShellTreeListBox.SelectedShellObjectEditingName property, and the ShellListView.RootShellFolder property is bound to the ShellTreeListBox.SelectedShellObject property. A Move Up button's command could also be bound to the ShellTreeListBox.MoveUpCommand property.

Browse for Folder

A Browse for Folder dialog generally shows a ShellTreeListBox control with a Make New Folder button underneath it, alongside OK and Cancel buttons.

The ShellTreeListBox.IsNewFolderContextMenuItemAllowed property is usually set to true when there is a Make New Folder button available in UI. Bind that button to the ShellTreeListBox's SelectedItem.CreateChildFolderCommand property, which is defined on the selected ShellObjectViewModel. Then when the OK button is clicked, examine the ShellTreeListBox selection to see what was selected.

FTP Client

FTP clients generally have local and remote file system sides. The local side could use a file explorer setup like what is described above. The same thing could be configured for the remote side, with the only difference being that the remote side would have the ShellTreeListBox.DefaultShellService and ShellListView.DefaultShellService properties both pointing to a custom shell service that knows how to access and enumerate folders and files on the remote file system.

The beauty of this setup is that both sets of controls are configured the same way with only the default shell services being different to distinguish the data provided by local and remote file systems.