ListBox

The ListBox control enables listing a series of items. The good news is that you are not limited to text items but you can also add complex items. Each item is represented by a ListBoxItem object, nested in the ListBox. The following example shows how you can declare a ListBox in XAML code:

Typically a ListBox is populated at runtime via data-binding. Basically concepts are the same as illustrated for the ComboBox control, so take a look there for a recap. To accomplish data-binding, simply specify the ItemsSource markup extension as follows:

<ListBox Name="ListBox1" ItemsSource="{Binding}"/>

Then in Visual Basic code you assign the ItemsSource property with a data-source as demonstrated in the following LINQ query that returns a list of names about running processes:

You access items in the ListBox via some properties such as the following:

• SelectedItem, of type Object, which returns the instance of the selected item in the ListBox. The returned object must be converted into the appropriate type.

• Items, which returns a read-only collection of items in the control.

In Chapter 35 you see a more extensive example of data-binding using the ListBox. Figure 32.10 shows the result for the data-bound implementation.

Figure 32.10 A data-bound ListBox.