Xamarin Forms: Dynamically creating a Listview item -> Problem with BindingContext

Question

as I was already describing in another post here on Stackoverflow, I was trying to get a different layout (one frame spanning multiple listview items). Now I decided to try the following approach: My ViewModel is a List of Lists (just like for a grouped listview). However instead of using a grouped listview, I have a normal ListView in which the single Items of the child list will be created in Code-behind as soon as the bindingContext of the ParentViewCell is available:

private void CommentViewCell_BindingContextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            if (this.BindingContext == null) return;
            var model = this.BindingContext as CommentViewModel;


            DateCommentViewCell dateCell = new DateCommentViewCell
            {
                BindingContext = model
            };

            ParentCommentViewCell parentCell = new ParentCommentViewCell
            {
                BindingContext = model
            };

            ContentStackView.Children.Add(dateCell.View);
            ContentStackView.Children.Add(parentCell.View);

            foreach (CommentBaseViewModel cbvm in model)
            {
                if (cbvm is CommentViewModel)
                {
                    ChildCommentViewCell childCell = new ChildCommentViewCell
                    {
                        BindingContext = cbvm
                    };

                    ContentStackView.Children.Add(childCell.View);
                }
            }
        }

When I run this, the visuals are actually ok and look how I intended them to.

However the BindingContext is wrong: The ChildCommentViewCell BindingContext does not reference the CommentViewModel of the child, but that of the parent when being displayed. I checked the BindingContext of the ChildCommentViewCell like this

public ChildCommentViewCell ()
        {
            InitializeComponent ();
            BindingContextChanged += ChildCommentViewCell_BindingContextChanged;

        }

        private void ChildCommentViewCell_BindingContextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            Debug.WriteLine("### ChildCommentViewCell BindingContext Changed");
            test();            
        }

        public void test()
        {
            var context = this.BindingContext as CommentViewModel;
            Debug.WriteLine("### Instance: " + this.GetHashCode());
            Debug.WriteLine("### \tBinding Context: " + context.CommentModel.Text);
            Debug.WriteLine("### \tLabel: " + ChildCommentText.Text);
        }

and the output on the console is just fine. However when running on my phone, the actual content is (as written above) that of the ParentCommentViewModel. Any ideas?

The XAML code of the ChildCommentViewCell element is the following:

<ViewCell xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
             x:Class="App.View.ViewCell.ChildCommentViewCell">
    <StackLayout Padding="10,0" Orientation="Horizontal" HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand">
        <StackLayout Orientation="Vertical" HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand">
            <StackLayout Orientation="Horizontal" HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand">
                <StackLayout Grid.Column="0" VerticalOptions="FillAndExpand" Orientation="Vertical" Spacing="0">
                    <Label Text="{Binding CommentModel.AuthorName}" Style="{StaticResource CommentAuthor}"/>
                </StackLayout>
                <Frame IsClippedToBounds="True" HasShadow="False" Margin="5" Padding="3" BackgroundColor="LightGray" CornerRadius="3.0">
                    <StackLayout Grid.Column="1" VerticalOptions="FillAndExpand" Orientation="Vertical" Spacing="0">
                        <Label x:Name="ChildCommentText" Text="{Binding Path=CommentModel.Text, StringFormat=' {0}'}" Style="{StaticResource CommentContent}"/>
                        <Label Text="{Binding CommentTimeAgo}" Style="{StaticResource CommentTime}" HorizontalOptions="Start"/>
                    </StackLayout>
                </Frame>
            </StackLayout>
        </StackLayout>
    </StackLayout>
</ViewCell>

One additional thing: I tried to debug the "Appearing"-Event, however this does not even get called once...?!

Thank you very much in advance!

Answer 1

Found my problem in the BindingContextChanged method: I had to explicitly bind the BindingContext to the view, not only to the ViewCell:

foreach (CommentBaseViewModel cbvm in model)
            {
                if (cbvm is CommentViewModel)
                {
                    ChildCommentViewCell childCell = new ChildCommentViewCell
                    {
                        BindingContext = cbvm
                    };
                    childCell.View.BindingContext = cbvm;
                    ContentStackView.Children.Add(childCell.View);
                }
}