Automatic Data Binding
- 2 minutes to read
TreeView has a unique built-in ability to automatically retrieve data from a data source that supports the IHierarchicalEnumerable or IHierarchicalDataSource interface. This topic describes the conditions that allow TreeView to bind automatically.
TreeView can recognize data items and retrieve some node characteristics from the data fields named in a specific way. If however, any of the data-related properties of a TreeView (such as TextField, ImageUrlField, etc.) have been set, then the mapping of the associated MVCxTreeViewNode object properties will proceed according to Data Binding Using Mapping Properties.
Data fields and node properties name match
During binding, TreeView implements its automatic binding ability by retrieving node characteristics from those data fields whose names coincide with certain property names of an MVCxTreeViewNode object. The table below lists the names of the node object properties that can be mapped during automatic binding, and the matching data field names you should use in the data source for mapping to work.
| Node properties that can be set automatically | Data field names |
|---|---|
| MVCxTreeViewNode.Checked | Checked |
| MVCxTreeViewNode.Enabled | Enabled |
| MVCxTreeViewNode.Image.Url | ImageUrl |
| MVCxTreeViewNode.Name | Name |
| MVCxTreeViewNode.NavigateUrl | NavigateUrl |
| MVCxTreeViewNode.Target | Target |
| MVCxTreeViewNode.Text | Text |
| MVCxTreeViewNode.ToolTip | ToolTip |
The following image illustrates the process of data retrieval during automatic binding to a particular type of data source - XmlDataSource.
Binding to a Site Map
Since the properties of a SiteMapNode object have specific names, TreeView is designed to automatically bind to a Site Map source, with node attributes with similar names. In the process of binding, corresponding properties of individual MVCxTreeViewNode objects are automatically associated with these item attributes and mapped accordingly. See the table below for name correspondence.
| Site Map node attributes | Corresponding TreeViewNode object properties |
|---|---|
| Description | MVCxTreeViewNode.ToolTip |
| Title | MVCxTreeViewNode.Text |
| Url | MVCxTreeViewNode.NavigateUrl |
Note
The structure of a Site Map allows some flexibility in the naming of item attributes. After TreeView detects the item attributes named title, url and description in the bound Site Map source, the conditions described in the above section apply.