Databinding + Dynamic Pivot - windows-phone-7

Question

I am having troubles with dynamically adding a PivotItem to a templated and databound Pivot.
The classes in use (a bit simplified to keep it quickly comprehensable);
class Menu {
string Name
List<Dish> Dishes_1;
List<Dish> Dishes_2;
List<Dish> Dishes_3;
}
class Dish {
string Description
string Price;
}
I want to use a Pivot to display a list of Menu-Objects. I create PivotItems dynamically based on the number of items in that list. Each PivotElement should thus follow the same layout and behave the same. The lay-out template and databinding is done in the .xaml as following;
<phone:Pivot x:Name="Mainpivot">
<phone:Pivot.HeaderTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Name}" />
</DataTemplate>
</phone:Pivot.HeaderTemplate>
<phone:Pivot.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<ListBox>
<TextBlock Text="Dishes_1"/>
<ListBox ItemsSource="{Binding Dishes_1}">
<ListBox.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Grid>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Description}"/>
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Price}"/>
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
</ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>
// ...
// this is repeated 3 times;
//a textblock and listbox per List<Dishes> in the Menu-class
</ListBox>
</DataTemplate>
</phone:Pivot.ItemTemplate>
</phone:Pivot>
I populate the Pivot in de .cs file with the following:
foreach (Menu m in List_Menus) {
PivotItem p = new PivotItem();
p.DataContext = m;
Mainpivot.Items.Add(p);
}
As I set the DataContext as a Menu-Object, the DataBinding (through xaml) should not require any more code here (so I think?).
The problem now being; it doesn't work...
Through looking with the debugger, It appears that the created PivotItem doesn't behave like the template defined in Mainpivot tells (or so I think). Looking at Mainpivot does show that PivotItems have been added, but that's it, I believe they're just empty all-null PivotItems. When executing in the emulator, It just shows an empty Pivot.
Any thoughts?
//PS: I don't use ViewModels, as I find them quite confusing (as a beginner) as concept. I don't think that has anything to do with the problem though?

Answer 1

A few things here. First, for your binding to work you'll need to use properties instead of fields.
public class Menu {
public string Name {get;set;}
public List<Dish> Dishes_1 { get; set; }
public List<Dish> Dishes_2 { get; set; }
public List<Dish> Dishes_3 { get; set; }
}
public class Dish {
public string Description { get; set; }
public string Price { get; set; }
}
Next, instead of your foreach loop to add the items to the pivot just set the items source:
Mainpivot.ItemsSource = List_Menus;
BTW - you really should look into learning MVVM. It is worth the time.