Is there a way to refresh the WPF UI so that all the texts update with a new value

Question

In my WPF app, I have a class with Static strings as follows and I refer the same from the XAML. My intention is to update these static strings and the UI texts should reflect the update.

public class StaticStrings
{
    public static string text1= "sample 1";
    public static string text2= "sample 2";
    public static string text3= "sample 3";
}

From the XAML I refer them as below:

<Label 
                    Content="{x:Static local:StaticStrings.text1}" 
                    Background="Transparent" 
                    Margin="5,0,18,3"
                    />
<Button x:Name="btn" 
                    Click="btn_MouseUp"
                    ToolTip="{x:Static local:StaticStrings.text2}"
                    />

During runtime, I would update the texts of StaticStrings and wish to see them reflected in the UI. How to achieve this?

Will Data Binding help in updating content dynamically? @SotirisKoukios-Panopoulos — Shameel Mohamed, Nov 16 '21 at 11:29
The whole point of DataBinding is that it will dynamically update UI if the data changes. — Neil, Nov 16 '21 at 11:30
also, using mutable global state like that is [not a good practice](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/148108/why-is-global-state-so-evil). — JonasH, Nov 16 '21 at 12:17

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 17 '21 at 20:01

Modify your StaticString class to support change notifications and expose public properties to bind to:

 public class StaticStrings
 {
     private static string text1 = "sample 1";
     public static string Text1
     {
         get { return text1; }
         set { text1 = value; NotifyStaticPropertyChanged(); }
     }

     private static string text2 = "sample 2";
     public static string Text2
     {
         get { return text2; }
         set { text2 = value; NotifyStaticPropertyChanged(); }
     }

     private static string text3 = "sample 3";
     public static string Text3
     {
         get { return text3; }
         set { text3 = value; NotifyStaticPropertyChanged(); }
     }

     public static event PropertyChangedEventHandler StaticPropertyChanged;

     private static void NotifyStaticPropertyChanged([CallerMemberName] string propertyName = null)
     {
         StaticPropertyChanged?.Invoke(null, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
     }
 }

Bind to the public properties:

 <Label 
         Content="{Binding Path=(local:StaticStrings.Text1)}" 
         Background="Transparent" 
         Margin="5,0,18,3"
         />
 <Button x:Name="btn" 
         Click="btn_MouseUp"
         ToolTip="{Binding Path=(local:StaticStrings.Text2)}"
         />

The thing is the strings can be any number. This seems really tiresome. Is there a way to trigger the PropertyChanged event automatically for all the props. — Shameel Mohamed, Nov 18 '21 at 11:28
[Fody](https://github.com/Fody/PropertyChanged) injects code which raises the `PropertyChanged` event into property setters of classes which implement `INotifyPropertyChanged` at build time. Don't know if it works with static properties. Otherwise you will have to implement these by your own like I did in my example. This is nothing strange or unusal. — mm8, Nov 19 '21 at 14:22

Is there a way to refresh the WPF UI so that all the texts update with a new value

1 Answers1