Herr Grunwald is talking about wrapping the TextEditor properties with dependency properties, so that you can bind to them. The basic idea is like this (using the CaretOffset property for example):
Modified TextEditor class
public class MvvmTextEditor : TextEditor, INotifyPropertyChanged
{
public static DependencyProperty CaretOffsetProperty =
DependencyProperty.Register("CaretOffset", typeof(int), typeof(MvvmTextEditor),
// binding changed callback: set value of underlying property
new PropertyMetadata((obj, args) =>
{
MvvmTextEditor target = (MvvmTextEditor)obj;
target.CaretOffset = (int)args.NewValue;
})
);
public new string Text
{
get { return base.Text; }
set { base.Text = value; }
}
public new int CaretOffset
{
get { return base.CaretOffset; }
set { base.CaretOffset = value; }
}
public int Length { get { return base.Text.Length; } }
protected override void OnTextChanged(EventArgs e)
{
RaisePropertyChanged("Length");
base.OnTextChanged(e);
}
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
public void RaisePropertyChanged(string info)
{
if (PropertyChanged != null)
{
PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(info));
}
}
}
Now that the CaretOffset has been wrapped in a DependencyProperty, you can bind it to a property, say Offset in your View Model. For illustration, bind a Slider control's value to the same View Model property Offset, and see that when you move the Slider, the Avalon editor's cursor position gets updated:
Test XAML
<Window x:Class="AvalonDemo.TestWindow"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:avalonEdit="http://icsharpcode.net/sharpdevelop/avalonedit"
xmlns:avalonExt="clr-namespace:WpfTest.AvalonExt"
DataContext="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource Self},Path=ViewModel}">
<StackPanel>
<avalonExt:MvvmTextEditor Text="Hello World" CaretOffset="{Binding Offset}" x:Name="editor" />
<Slider Minimum="0" Maximum="{Binding ElementName=editor,Path=Length,Mode=OneWay}"
Value="{Binding Offset}" />
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Offset,StringFormat='Caret Position is {0}'}" />
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Length,ElementName=editor,StringFormat='Length is {0}'}" />
</StackPanel>
</Window>
Test Code-behind
namespace AvalonDemo
{
public partial class TestWindow : Window
{
public AvalonTestModel ViewModel { get; set; }
public TestWindow()
{
ViewModel = new AvalonTestModel();
InitializeComponent();
}
}
}
Test View Model
public class AvalonTestModel : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
private int _offset;
public int Offset
{
get { return _offset; }
set
{
_offset = value;
RaisePropertyChanged("Offset");
}
}
public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
public void RaisePropertyChanged(string info)
{
if (PropertyChanged != null)
{
PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(info));
}
}
}
