Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Combining DataTriggers and Property Triggers in WPF

How to combine property-triggers and data-triggers in WPF is not quite clear from the documentation.

Property-trigger that changes the color of a buttons background

A property-trigger is a trigger that works with the visisble element properties of WPF. Button has among others an IsMouseOver-property.

<Style TargetType="{x:Type Button}">
 <Setter Property="Button.Background" Value="AliceBlue" />
 <Style.Triggers>
  <Trigger Property="IsMouseOver" Value="True">
   <Setter Property="Button.Background" Value="Yellow" />
  </Trigger>
 </Style.Triggers>
</Style>

Data-trigger that changes the color of a buttons background

A data-trigger is a trigger that works with the properties of my own objects. My user object below has a Name and a Role property.

public class User {
    private string name;
    private string role;

    public string Name {
        get { return name; }
        set { name = value; }
 }

    public string Role {
        get { return role; }
        set { role = value; }
    }
}

<Style TargetType="{x:Type Button}">
 <Style.Triggers>
  <DataTrigger Binding="{Binding Path=Role}" Value="Admin">
   <Setter Property="Button.Background" Value="Red" />
  </DataTrigger>
 </Style.Triggers>
</Style>

A combined property-trigger and a data-trigger that changes the color of a buttons background

If I want to combine the two triggers above to check if the role is admin and the mouse is over there is no straightforward way to do this, so I have to resort to this.

<Style TargetType="{x:Type Button}">
 <Style.Triggers>
  <MultiDataTrigger>
   <MultiDataTrigger.Conditions>
    <!-- This binding refers to the actual WPF element. -->
    <Condition Binding="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource Self}, Path=IsMouseOver}" Value="True"/>
    <Condition Binding="{Binding Path=Role}" Value="Admin"/>
   </MultiDataTrigger.Conditions>
   <Setter Property="Button.Background" Value="Orange" />
  </MultiDataTrigger>
 </Style.Triggers>
</Style>


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Absolute Gold.

Anonymous said...

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alex Ilyin said...

Very helpful indeed

Tanner said...

I didn't understand a good use for a multitrigger until i saw your post here. I was able to take your sample source and translate it into something that I can use.

Thanks for taking the time to share some info for MultiTriggers!