BusyIndicator.Message Binding to Collection of strings - silverlight-3.0

Question

I'm trying to binding a SL BusyIndicator to a collection of busy messages. When the collection has items, the indicator will display the messages. When the collection of messages is empty the indicator will hide.
First off the indicator is not displaying my messages, all I see is a blank indicator box, with an indeterminate progress bar:
<UserControl.Resources>
...
<anotherAssembly:CollectionToBoolConverter x:Key="CollectionToBoolConverter" />
<DataTemplate x:Key="LoadingMessageDataTemplate">
<ItemsControl x:Name="itemsControl" ItemsSource="{Binding AllocationLoadingMessages}" >
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding}" />
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>
</DataTemplate>
...
</UserControl.Resources>
...
<controlToolkit:BusyIndicator
IsBusy="{Binding AllocationLoadingMessages, Converter={StaticResource CollectionToBoolConverter}}"
BusyContent="{Binding AllocationLoadingMessages}"
BusyContentTemplate="{StaticResource LoadingMessageDataTemplate}"/>
///content
</controlToolkit:BusyIndicator>
...
ViewModel:
private ObservableCollection<string> _allocationLoadingMessages = new ObservableCollection<string>();
public ObservableCollection<string> AllocationLoadingMessages
{
get { return _allocationLoadingMessages; }
set
{
SetValue(ref _allocationLoadingMessages, value, "AllocationLoadingMessages");
}
}
So how do I get a simple list of messages in my Indiciator?
Thanks,
Mark

Answer 1

Your code is very near the target, all you need to do to get this to work is to replace the line
<ItemsControl x:Name="itemsControl" ItemsSource="{Binding AllocationLoadingMessages}" >
with
<ItemsControl x:Name="itemsControl" ItemsSource="{Binding}" >
I tested this both in Silverlight 3 and 5, so I figure it'll work in 4 as well.
I'm not sure what your set { } code for the AllocationLoadingMessages property is for; you shouldn't have to replace the collection every time you make a change to it. When I got it to work, all I did in the view model was this:
public ObservableCollection<string> AllocationLoadingMessages { get; set; }
private int _loadingMessageNumber = 0;
private void Add()
{
AllocationLoadingMessages.Add( "Loading message #" + ++_loadingMessageNumber );
PropertyChanged( this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs( "AllocationLoadingMessages" ) );
}
private void RemoveFirst()
{
if( AllocationLoadingMessages.Count > 0 )
{
AllocationLoadingMessages.RemoveAt( 0 );
PropertyChanged( this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs( "AllocationLoadingMessages" ) );
}
}
I'm sorry I'm late (didn't come across this question until now), but I hope it can at least help others who are looking for the answer to this.