Data binding to SelectedItem in a WPF Treeview

Question

How can I retrieve the item that is selected in a WPF-treeview? I want to do this in XAML, because I want to bind it.

You might think that it is SelectedItem

Answer 1

I bring you my solution which offers the following features:

• Supports 2 ways binding

• Auto updates the TreeViewItem.IsSelected properties (according to the SelectedItem)

• No TreeView subclassing

• Items bound to ViewModel can be of any type (even null)

1/ Paste the following code in your CS:

public class BindableSelectedItem
{
    public static readonly DependencyProperty SelectedItemProperty = DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached(
        "SelectedItem", typeof(object), typeof(BindableSelectedItem), new PropertyMetadata(default(object), OnSelectedItemPropertyChangedCallback));

    private static void OnSelectedItemPropertyChangedCallback(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        var treeView = d as TreeView;
        if (treeView != null)
        {
            BrowseTreeViewItems(treeView, tvi =>
            {
                tvi.IsSelected = tvi.DataContext == e.NewValue;
            });
        }
        else
        {
            throw new Exception("Attached property supports only TreeView");
        }
    }

    public static void SetSelectedItem(DependencyObject element, object value)
    {
        element.SetValue(SelectedItemProperty, value);
    }

    public static object GetSelectedItem(DependencyObject element)
    {
        return element.GetValue(SelectedItemProperty);
    }

    public static void BrowseTreeViewItems(TreeView treeView, Action onBrowsedTreeViewItem)
    {
        var collectionsToVisit = new System.Collections.Generic.List> { new Tuple(treeView.ItemContainerGenerator, treeView.Items) };
        var collectionIndex = 0;
        while (collectionIndex < collectionsToVisit.Count)
        {
            var itemContainerGenerator = collectionsToVisit[collectionIndex].Item1;
            var itemCollection = collectionsToVisit[collectionIndex].Item2;
            for (var i = 0; i < itemCollection.Count; i++)
            {
                var tvi = itemContainerGenerator.ContainerFromIndex(i) as TreeViewItem;
                if (tvi == null)
                {
                    continue;
                }

                if (tvi.ItemContainerGenerator.Status == System.Windows.Controls.Primitives.GeneratorStatus.ContainersGenerated)
                {
                    collectionsToVisit.Add(new Tuple(tvi.ItemContainerGenerator, tvi.Items));
                }

                onBrowsedTreeViewItem(tvi);
            }

            collectionIndex++;
        }
    }

}

2/ Example of use in your XAML file