Designing RIA Applications using Expression Blend - 2

In this series of post I would be demonstrating the various features Blend offers to the Developers to develop RIA applications.
 
In the first few parts I would give a brief of how we are going to use those features.
 
In this article let us check out how to bind the listbox to an objectdatasource.
 
Lets create a new Blend Silverlight Application.


 
First and foremost lets create out classes as shown below :
 
        public class Employee: INotifyPropertyChanged
        {
               public Employee(string name, int id, bool current)
               {
                      _name = name;
                      _empID = id;
                      _isCurrentEmployee = current;                      
               }
               private string _name = string.Empty;
               private int _empID = 0;
               private bool _isCurrentEmployee;
               public string Name
               {
                      get {return _name;}
                      set {
                            if (value != _name)
                            {
                             _name = value;
                                   OnPropertyChanged(this, "Name");
                            }
                      }
               }
              
               public int EmpID
               {
               get { return _empID; }
               set {
                      if (value != _empID)
                            {
                             _empID = value;
                                   OnPropertyChanged(this, "EmpID");
                            }
               }
               }
                     
               public bool IsCurrentEmployee
               {
               get { return _isCurrentEmployee;}
               set {
                      if (value != _isCurrentEmployee)
                            {
                             _isCurrentEmployee = value;
                                   OnPropertyChanged(this, "IsCurrentEmployee");
                            }
                      }
               }
                     
               public event  PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged ; 
               private void  OnPropertyChanged( object  sender,  string  propertyName)
               {
               if  ( this .PropertyChanged != null )
                      {
                            PropertyChanged(sender, new  PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName)) ;
                      }
              } 
        }
       
        public class Employees
        {
               string _companyName;
               public string CompanyName
               {
                      get { return "Fabrikam Inc.";}
                      set { _companyName = value;}
               }
               public ObservableCollection<Employee> EmployeeCollection
               {
               get {
                      ObservableCollection<Employee> _emplist = new ObservableCollection<Employee>();
                      _emplist.Add(new Employee("Joe Smith", 12343, false));
                      _emplist.Add(new Employee("Mark Jones", 8555, true));
                      _emplist.Add(new Employee("Jane Miller", 2377, true));
                      _emplist.Add(new Employee("Suzy Day", 5885, true));
               return        _emplist;
               }
               }             
        }
 
Create a data source by clicking on the icon highlighted below :


 
Click on Create Object Data Source.


 
A Create Object Data Source Dialog appears. Make sure the Show all assemblies is checked.


 
Select the Employees class as our ObjectDataSource.


 
The Data Window changes as shown below :


 
Simply drag and drop the EmployeeCollection into the Listbox.


 
Well we are done. The ListBox gets updated with the data as shown below :


 
Happy coding.