How to programmatically select an item in a WPF TreeView?

Question

How is it possible to programmatically select an item in a WPF TreeView? The ItemsControl model seems to prevent it.

Answer 1

I wrote an extension method:

using System.Windows.Controls;

namespace Extensions
{
    public static class TreeViewEx
    {
        /// 

        /// Select specified item in a TreeView
        /// 
        public static void SelectItem(this TreeView treeView, object item)
        {
            var tvItem = treeView.ItemContainerGenerator.ContainerFromItem(item) as TreeViewItem;
            if (tvItem != null)
            {
                tvItem.IsSelected = true;
            }
        }
    }
}

Which I can use like this:

if (_items.Count > 0)
    _treeView.SelectItem(_items[0]);