How can I find an item in a WPF ListBox by typing?

Drew Noakes picture Drew Noakes · May 28, 2009 · Viewed 8.5k times · Source

Most list boxes allow you to find items within them by typing the first letters of the displayed text. If the typed letters match multiple items, then you can keep adding letters to narrow the search.

I need to do this in a WPF ListBox. However, the items aren't plain strings -- they're custom objects that I present using a DataTemplate. I'm hoping that there's a way I can provide a path to the string value that should be used for this textual keyboard navigation of the ListBox items.

How is this possible?

Answer

Jules picture Jules · May 28, 2009

You could try setting IsTextSearchEnabled to true and using the TextSearch.TextPath attached property.

e.g.

<ListBox IsTextSearchEnabled="True" 
         TextSearch.TextPath="CustomObject.StringProperty"/>