Automatic Data Binding
- 2 minutes to read
TabControl has a 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 a TabControl to bind automatically.
TabControl can recognize data items and retrieve some tab characteristics from data fields named in a specific way. If however, any of the data-related properties of a TabControl have been set, then the mapping of the associated MVCxTab object properties will proceed according to Data Binding Using Mapping Properties.
Data fields and tab properties name match
During binding, a TabControl implements its automatic binding ability by retrieving item characteristics from those data fields whose names coincide with certain property names of an MVCxTab object. The tables below list the names of the 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.
| Tab properties that can be set automatically | Data field names |
|---|---|
| MVCxTab.ActiveTabImage.Url | ActiveTabImageUrl |
| MVCxTab.Name | Name |
| MVCxTab.NavigateUrl | NavigateUrl |
| MVCxTab.TabImage.Url | TabImageUrl |
| MVCxTab.Text | Text |
| MVCxTab.ToolTip | ToolTip |
The following image illustrates the process of data retrieval during automatic binding to a particular type of a data source - XmlDataSource.
Binding to a Site Map
Since the properties of a SiteMapNode object have specific names, a TabControl is designed to automatically bind to a Site Map source with node attributes with similar names. In the binding process, corresponding properties of individual tab objects are automatically associated with these item attributes, and mapped accordingly. See the table below for name correspondence.
| Site Map node attributes | Corresponding tab object properties |
|---|---|
| Title | MVCxTab.Text |
| Url | MVCxTab.NavigateUrl |
| Description | MVCxTab.ToolTip |
Note
The structure of a Site Map allows some flexibility in the naming of item attributes. After TabControl detects the item attributes named title, url and description in the bound Site Map source, the conditions described in the above section apply.