Twoway-bind view's DependencyProperty to viewmodel's property?

Solution 1:

If you want to do it in XAML, you could try using styles to achieve that.

Here's an example:

<UserControl x:Class="MyModule.MyView"
             xmlns:local="clr-namespace:MyModule">
    <UserControl.Resources>
        <Style TargetType="local:MyView">
            <Setter Property="MyViewProperty" Value="{Binding MyViewModelProperty, Mode=TwoWay}"/>
        </Style>
    </UserControl.Resources>
    <!-- content -->
</UserControl>

In your case both MyViewProperty and MyViewModelProperty would be named MyProperty but I used different names just to be clear about what is what.

Solution 2:

I use Caliburn.Micro for separating the ViewModel from the View. Still, it might work the same way in MVVM. I guess MVVM sets the view's DataContext property to the instance of the ViewModel, either.

VIEW

// in the class of the view: MyView
public string ViewModelString // the property which stays in sync with VM's property
{
    get { return (string)GetValue(ViewModelStringProperty); }
    set
    {
        var oldValue = (string) GetValue(ViewModelStringProperty);
        if (oldValue != value) SetValue(ViewModelStringProperty, value);
    }
}

public static readonly DependencyProperty ViewModelStringProperty =
    DependencyProperty.Register(
        "ViewModelString",
        typeof(string),
        typeof(MyView),
        new PropertyMetadata(OnStringValueChanged)
        );

private static void OnStringValueChanged(DependencyObject o, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
    // do some custom stuff, if needed
    // if not, just pass null instead of a delegate
}    

public MyView()
{
    InitializeComponent();
    // This is the binding, which binds the property of the VM
    // to your dep. property.
    // My convention is give my property wrapper in the view the same
    // name as the property in the VM has.
    var nameOfPropertyInVm = "ViewModelString"
    var binding = new Binding(nameOfPropertyInVm) { Mode = BindingMode.TwoWay };
    this.SetBinding(SearchStringProperty, binding);
}

VM

// in the class of the ViewModel: MyViewModel
public string ViewModelStringProperty { get; set; }

Note, that this kind of implementation lacks completely of implementation of the INotifyPropertyChanged interface. You'd need to update this code properly.