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 of GreekGod custom objects. DataTemplates 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

Concepts

Data Binding Overview

Other Resources

Data Binding Samples
Data Binding How-to Topics