WPF Datagrid restrict input with combobox

Question

i am using the EF and the MVVM approach to get a bunch of data records in an ObservableCollection . This ObservableCollection lives in a ViewModel. The ViewModel is than bound to a DataGrid . This works just fine.

For the sake of data consistency i now want to turn a bunch of columns in the DataGrid into ComboBoxes . So the user can only choose from a predefined set of values. These predefined values are also stored in the database (You can think of it as a lookup table). I can load the values from the database and also put it in an ObservableCollection . But now i wonder how can i bind this to the DataGrid , since i can only specify one ItemSource for the DataGrid . Is this even the right approach in WPF?

Answer 1

Bind the ItemsSource property of DataGridComboBoxColumn to your values from the lookup table.

Then bind SelectedValueBinding to the field in the main collection.

If you are using normalised values (ie numeric values mapped to the items in the lookup table), then you should also set the SelectedValuePath and DisplayMemberPath properties.