UserControl's DependencyProperty is null when UserControl has a DataContext

Question

I have added a DependencyProperty to my View, binding to the DependencyProperty works, but only if I do not also set the DataContext.

GenericView.xaml

Answer 1

As @toadflakz said, this is a very common issue in WPF and one that took me a while to get my head around when I was learning WPF. Luckily, the solution is simple. Let's say that we have a UserControl that has an object set as its DataContext and another set as the value of a DependencyProperty that is declared within the UserControl... your situation.

From within the UserControl XAML, you can data bind to a property of the object set as the DataContext as normal:

If you want to data bind to an object from the object set as the value of the DependencyProperty, you can simply use a RelativeSource Binding:

Note that both of these Bindings can be used together in the same UserControl as long as both of the DataContext and DependencyProperty properties have been set.