To my understanding of your problem, you are trying to find a way to set the Value of your DataTrigger according to the value of one of the properties of your view model. So here I have a solution.
Here is the View Model
public class ViewModel : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
private string _text;
private string _candidateValue;
public string Text
{
get
{
return this._text;
}
set
{
this._text = value;
if (null != PropertyChanged)
{
this.PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("Text"));
}
}
}
public string CandidateValue
{
get
{
return this._candidateValue;
}
set
{
this._candidateValue = value;
if (null != PropertyChanged)
{
this.PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("Text"));
}
}
}
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
}
And you need a IValueConverter in your binding of DataTrigger
public class ValueConverter : DependencyObject, IValueConverter
{
public static readonly DependencyProperty CandidateValueProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("CandidateValue", typeof(string), typeof(ValueConverter));
public string CandidateValue
{
get { return (string)GetValue(CandidateValueProperty); }
set { SetValue(CandidateValueProperty, value); }
}
public ValueConverter()
: base()
{
}
public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
{
if (null != value)
{
if (value.ToString() == this.CandidateValue)
return true;
}
return false;
}
public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
{
return null;
}
}
And the xaml is quite simple
<TextBox x:Name="TextBox" Text="{Binding Text,UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}">
</TextBox>
You need to create your datatrigger in code behind.
public MainWindow()
{
InitializeComponent();
//The view model object
ViewModel vm = new ViewModel();
vm.CandidateValue = "1";
this.DataContext = vm;
//create data trigger object for TextBox
DataTrigger d = new DataTrigger();
//create binding object for data trigger
Binding b = new Binding("Text");
ValueConverter c = new ValueConverter();
b.Converter = c;
//create binding object for ValueConverter.CandidateValueProperty
Binding convertBinding = new Binding("CandidateValue");
convertBinding.Source = vm;
BindingOperations.SetBinding(c, ValueConverter.CandidateValueProperty, convertBinding);
d.Binding = b;
d.Value = true;
Setter s = new Setter(TextBox.ForegroundProperty, Brushes.Red);
d.Setters.Add(s);
Style st = new Style(typeof(TextBox));
st.Triggers.Add(d);
this.TextBox.Style = st;
}
The trick here is that the ValueConverter has a dependency property named CandidateValueProperty. And this property is bind to the CandidateValue of view model. So the foreground of the TextBox will be red when the input value equals to CandidateValue of view model.