ElementName Binding from MenuItem in ContextMenu

Question

Has anybody else noticed that Bindings with ElementName do not resolve correctly for MenuItem objects that are contained within ContextMenu objects? Check out this sample:

<Window x:Class="EmptyWPF.Window1"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    Title="Window1" Height="300" Width="300"
    x:Name="window">
    <Grid x:Name="grid" Background="Wheat">
        <Grid.ContextMenu>
            <ContextMenu x:Name="menu">
                <MenuItem x:Name="menuItem" Header="Window" Tag="{Binding ElementName=window}" Click="MenuItem_Click"/>
                <MenuItem Header="Grid" Tag="{Binding ElementName=grid}" Click="MenuItem_Click"/>
                <MenuItem Header="Menu" Tag="{Binding ElementName=menu}" Click="MenuItem_Click"/>
                <MenuItem Header="Menu Item" Tag="{Binding ElementName=menuItem}" Click="MenuItem_Click"/>
            </ContextMenu>
        </Grid.ContextMenu>
        <Button Content="Menu" 
                HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center" 
                Click="MenuItem_Click" Tag="{Binding ElementName=menu}"/>
        <Menu HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Bottom">
            <MenuItem x:Name="anotherMenuItem" Header="Window" Tag="{Binding ElementName=window}" Click="MenuItem_Click"/>
            <MenuItem Header="Grid" Tag="{Binding ElementName=grid}" Click="MenuItem_Click"/>
            <MenuItem Header="Menu" Tag="{Binding ElementName=menu}" Click="MenuItem_Click"/>
            <MenuItem Header="Menu Item" Tag="{Binding ElementName=anotherMenuItem}" Click="MenuItem_Click"/>
        </Menu>
    </Grid>
</Window>

All of the bindings work great except for the bindings contained within the ContextMenu. They print an error to the Output window during runtime.

Any one know of any work arounds? What's going on here?

Answer 1

I found a much simpler solution.

In the code behind for the UserControl:

NameScope.SetNameScope(contextMenu, NameScope.GetNameScope(this));