How to: Implement a CompositeCollection

Example

The following example shows how to display multiple collections and items as one list using the CompositeCollection class. In this example, GreekGods is an ObservableCollection<T> of GreekGod custom objects. Data templates are defined so that GreekGod objects and GreekHero objects appear with a gold and a cyan foreground color respectively.

<Window Background="Cornsilk"
  xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
  xmlns:x="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
  xmlns:c="clr-namespace:SDKSample"
  x:Class="SDKSample.Window1"
  Title="CompositeCollections"
  SizeToContent="WidthAndHeight"
  >
  <Window.Resources>
    <c:GreekGods x:Key="GreekGodsData"/>

    <XmlDataProvider x:Key="GreekHeroesData" XPath="GreekHeroes/Hero">
      <x:XData>
      <GreekHeroes >
        <Hero Name="Jason" />
        <Hero Name="Hercules" />
        <Hero Name="Bellerophon" />
        <Hero Name="Theseus" />
        <Hero Name="Odysseus" />
        <Hero Name="Perseus" />
      </GreekHeroes>
      </x:XData>
    </XmlDataProvider>

    <DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type c:GreekGod}">
      <TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Name}" Foreground="Gold"/>
    </DataTemplate>
    <DataTemplate DataType="Hero">
      <TextBlock Text="{Binding XPath=@Name}" Foreground="Cyan"/>
    </DataTemplate>
    </Window.Resources>
    
  <StackPanel>
    <TextBlock FontSize="18" FontWeight="Bold" Margin="10"
      HorizontalAlignment="Center">Composite Collections Sample</TextBlock>
    <ListBox Name="myListBox" Height="300" Width="200" Background="White">
      <ListBox.ItemsSource>
        <CompositeCollection>
          <CollectionContainer
            Collection="{Binding Source={StaticResource GreekGodsData}}" />
          <CollectionContainer
            Collection="{Binding Source={StaticResource GreekHeroesData}}" />
          <ListBoxItem Foreground="Red">Other Listbox Item 1</ListBoxItem>
          <ListBoxItem Foreground="Red">Other Listbox Item 2</ListBoxItem>
        </CompositeCollection>
      </ListBox.ItemsSource>
    </ListBox>
  </StackPanel>

</Window>

See Also

Reference

CollectionContainer

ItemsSource

XmlDataProvider

DataTemplate

Concepts

Data Binding Overview

Other Resources

Data Binding How-to Topics