How do I access the children of an ItemsControl?

Question

If i have a component derived from ItemsControl, can I access a collection of it's children so that I can loop through them to perform certain actions? I can't seem to find any easy way at the moment.

Answer 1

A solution similar to Seb's but probably with better performance :

for(int i = 0; i < itemsControl.Items.Count; i++)
{
    UIElement uiElement =
        (UIElement)itemsControl.ItemContainerGenerator.ContainerFromIndex(i);
}

Answer 2

See if this helps you out:

foreach(var item in itemsControl.Items)
{
    UIElement uiElement =
        (UIElement)itemsControl.ItemContainerGenerator.ContainerFromItem(item);
}

There is a difference between logical items in a control and an UIElement.

Answer 3

To identify ItemsControl's databound child controls (like a ToggleButton), you can use this:

for (int i = 0; i < yourItemsControl.Items.Count; i++)
{

    ContentPresenter c = (ContentPresenter)yourItemsControl.ItemContainerGenerator.ContainerFromItem(yourItemsControl.Items[i]);
    ToggleButton tb = c.ContentTemplate.FindName("btnYourButtonName", c) as ToggleButton;

    if (tb.IsChecked.Value)
    {
        //do stuff

    }
}

Answer 4

I'm assuming ItemsControl.Items[index] doesn't work, then?

I'm not being funny, and I haven't checked for myself - that's just my first guess. Most often a control will have an items indexer property, even if it's databound.