WPF Binding to parent DataContext

Question

We have a WPF application with a standard MVVM pattern, leveraging Cinch (and therefore MefedMVVM) for View -> ViewModel resolution. This works well, and I can bind the relevant

Answer 1

Because of things like this, as a general rule of thumb, I try to avoid as much XAML "trickery" as possible and keep the XAML as dumb and simple as possible and do the rest in the ViewModel (or attached properties or IValueConverters etc. if really necessary).

If possible I would give the ViewModel of the current DataContext a reference (i.e. property) to the relevant parent ViewModel

public class ThisViewModel : ViewModelBase
{
    TypeOfAncestorViewModel Parent { get; set; }
}

and bind against that directly instead.

<TextBox Text="{Binding Parent}" />

Answer 2

I dont know about XamGrid but that's what i'll do with a standard wpf DataGrid:

<DataGrid>
    <DataGrid.Columns>
        <DataGridTemplateColumn>
            <DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate>
                <DataTemplate>
                    <TextBlock Text="{Binding DataContext.MyProperty, RelativeSource={RelativeSource AncestorType=MyUserControl}}"/>
                </DataTemplate>
            </DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate>
            <DataGridTemplateColumn.CellEditingTemplate>
                <DataTemplate>
                    <TextBox Text="{Binding DataContext.MyProperty, RelativeSource={RelativeSource AncestorType=MyUserControl}}"/>
                </DataTemplate>
            </DataGridTemplateColumn.CellEditingTemplate>
        </DataGridTemplateColumn>
    </DataGrid.Columns>
</DataGrid>

Since the TextBlock and the TextBox specified in the cell templates will be part of the visual tree, you can walk up and find whatever control you need.