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Hope most of you have used StringFormat property on your binding to render the formatted value on the user interface. But are you aware about one of its secret. Well before revealing that secret, let’s have a look at how StringFormat works with binding. Scenario problem: I am taking an example scenario, in which my text box will display amount till three decimals.  Now there are multiple ways to achieve this. One way can be by using Converters, another way can be by using StringFormat along with TextBox binding. Perhaps there can be more ways apart from these two ;) In below sample I am going to take StringFormat trick to achieve this and code to perform this operation is very straight forward as: <TextBox Text="{Binding Amount,StringFormat=f3}" /> With above code, whenever you will lost focus from your TextBox, given amount will be displayed as three decimal points. Till here everything is perfect as expected BUT with one downsize. Important

Converters give you a lot supremacy as it allows you to insert an object between a source and a target object. At high level, converters are a chunk of custom code that hooked up through the binding and data will flow via that converter. So, whenever data is flown from source to target, one can change the value or can change the type of object that needs to be set on target property. So, whenever data travels from source to target, it can be transformed in two ways: Data value: Here transformation will be done with just the value by keeping the data type intact. For example, for number fields, you can transform value to floating point number to an integer, by keeping the actual value as a float. Data type:  One can also transform the data type. For example, setting a style based on some Boolean flag, this is one of the most common example. Isn't it? Defining a converter: Defining any converter requires implementation of IValueConverter interface in a class. Thi

This is a property on a binding that controls the data flow from target to the source and used in two-way databinding scenarios. The default mode is when focus changes but there are number of other options available, which we will see in this article. Data trigger scenarios: Let’s talk about some of the data trigger scenarios.  By default, modified values in the binding controls only get pushed down when we do activity related to focus change like tab out, minimizing and maximizing window, etc. ·     In some scenarios we want to update values as quickly as possible, or let’s say with every key stoke.  So, to achieve such kind of scenarios Microsoft provided  UpdateSourceTrigger .  Properties available with  UpdateSourceTrigger : Default – This is the default value and it means a lost focus for most of the controls LostFocus – Value updation will be on hold until the focus moves out of control PropertyChanged – Value updation will happen whenever a target property

Here I am going to briefly introduce with the types of custom controls one can build in WPF. Someone can ask why we need custom controls, if we can do everything with Styles and Control Templates ??? Well, I would say still there are scenarios where one may need custom controls. One of them can be, while creating reusable control which is composed of many other controls, i.e: I want to create a control for data entry purpose, which will take Temporary address and Permanent Address. Here I don’t want to copy/paste XAML code repeatedly for these two addresses. So, it’s better to create a one User Control and reuse it. Another scenario can be, when we need a functionality which is not provided by existing WPF controls, here custom control can be the best solution. UserControl vs Control Now before proceeding further, it is important to have a look at the two most common classes of WPF namely UserControl and Control . UserControl should be chosen when you want to combine ex

Recently I received a request from one of the followers on ways to bind source objects. So, I thought it would be a nice topic for a post. Hence, it's here. For a binding to work, there should be a source object. The selection of source object is totally dependent on the way binding is used. If no binding source is provided, then bydefault DataContext of an element is used. The most common way is to set DataContext on parent element and let it flow to all its children. But apart from this, there are 3 other ways by which one can point to source object:  1) RelativeSource - Relative source is one of the property on a binding that can point to relative source markup extension which tells where the source can be found in hierarchy. In simple words, it is the relative path in the element hierarchy. 2) ElementName - Another way of specifying source is by using ElementName in which other element present in the current UI can be used as a source object. Here the source object