Autogenerated Tiles

When you want the tiles of RadTileList to be automatically generated on the basis of a collection, use the ItemsSource property.

• Create a new class named Employee. The class' structure is shown on the next code-snippet.

Example 1: Defining the Employee class

public class Employee 
{ 
    public string FirstName 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
    public string LastName 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
    public string Occupation 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
    public int Salary 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
} 

Public Class Employee 
    Public Property FirstName() As String 
        Get 
            Return m_FirstName 
        End Get 
        Set(value As String) 
            m_FirstName = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
    Private m_FirstName As String 
    Public Property LastName() As String 
        Get 
            Return m_LastName 
        End Get 
        Set(value As String) 
            m_LastName = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
    Private m_LastName As String 
    Public Property Occupation() As String 
        Get 
            Return m_Occupation 
        End Get 
        Set(value As String) 
            m_Occupation = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
    Private m_Occupation As String 
    Public Property Salary() As Integer 
        Get 
            Return m_Salary 
        End Get 
        Set(value As Integer) 
            m_Salary = value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
    Private m_Salary As Integer 
End Class 

• Once the class Employee is defined, we will define an EmployeeService class that will return an ObservableCollection, containing several hard-coded employees:

Example 2: Defining the EmployeeService class

public class EmployeeService 
{ 
    public EmployeeService() 
    { } 
 
    public static ObservableCollection<Employee> GetEmployees() 
    { 
        ObservableCollection<Employee> employees = new ObservableCollection<Employee>(); 
        employees.Add(new Employee() { FirstName = "Sarah", LastName = "Blake", Occupation = "Suppliess Manager", Salary = 3500 }); 
        employees.Add(new Employee() { FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Simpson", Occupation = "Security", Salary = 2000 }); 
        employees.Add(new Employee() { FirstName = "John", LastName = "Peterson", Occupation = "Consultant", Salary = 2600 }); 
        employees.Add(new Employee() { FirstName = "Peter", LastName = "Bush", Occupation = "Cashier", Salary = 2300 }); 
        return employees; 
    } 
} 

Public Class EmployeeService 
    Public Sub New() 
    End Sub 
    Public Shared Function GetEmployees() As ObservableCollection(Of Employee) 
        Dim employees As New ObservableCollection(Of Employee)() 
        employees.Add(New Employee() With { _ 
         .FirstName = "Sarah", _ 
         .LastName = "Blake", _ 
         .Occupation = "Supplies Manager", _ 
         .Salary = 3500 _ 
        }) 
        employees.Add(New Employee() With { _ 
         .FirstName = "Jane", _ 
         .LastName = "Simpson", _ 
         .Occupation = "Security", _ 
         .Salary = 2000 _ 
        }) 
        employees.Add(New Employee() With { _ 
         .FirstName = "John", _ 
         .LastName = "Peterson", _ 
         .Occupation = "Consultant", _ 
         .Salary = 2600 _ 
        }) 
        employees.Add(New Employee() With { _ 
        .FirstName = "Peter", _ 
        .LastName = "Bush", _ 
        .Occupation = "Cashier", _ 
        .Salary = 2300 _ 
        }) 
        Return employees 
    End Function        End Class 

• Set the ItemsSource property of RadTileList.

Example 3: Setting the ItemsSource property

public MainPage() 
{ 
    InitializeComponent(); 
    this.RadTileList.ItemsSource = EmployeeService.GetEmployees(); 
} 

Public Sub New() 
    InitializeComponent() 
    Me.RadTileList.ItemsSource = EmployeeService.GetEmployees() 
End Sub 

Run your demo. The result should be similar to the next image:

The reason for this result is that the RadTileList "still doesn't know" how to display these business objects. You need to "say" explicitly what to be displayed. You can set a ItemTemplate.

• Create a DataTemplate and set it as a ItemTemplate.

Example 4: Setting the ItemTemplate

 <Grid> 
        <Grid.Resources> 
            <DataTemplate x:Key="ItemTemplate"> 
                <TextBlock Text="{Binding FirstName}"/> 
            </DataTemplate> 
        </Grid.Resources> 
        <telerik:RadTileList x:Name="RadTileList" 
                             ItemTemplate="{StaticResource ItemTemplate}"/> 
</Grid> 

The result is shown on the next image:

When the ItemsSource is specified, Tiles containers are generated for each item in the collection. By using the AutoGeneratingTile event of RadTileList you can control the appearance and the look of the items in the collection.

As AutoGeneratingTile event is cancelable, you may reject the creation of a particular tile.

Example 5: Handling the AutoGeneratingTile event

private void RadTileList_AutoGeneratingTile(object sender, AutoGeneratingTileEventArgs e) 
{ 
    Employee employee = e.Tile.Content as Employee; 
    if (employee.FirstName == "Jane") 
    { 
        e.Tile.Content = new TextBlock { Text = employee.FirstName }; 
        e.Tile.Background = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Blue); 
        e.Tile.TileType = TileType.Single; 
    } 
} 

The final result is shown on the next image: