Custom Data Sources in UI libraries

ui-libs-custom-data-sources.md

Custom Data Sources in UI libraries

Lists

Implement a custom data source

• GTK: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GTK%2B_By_Example/Tree_View/Custom_Models
• Cocoa: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nstableviewdatasource
• UWP: ListView.ItemsSource can be set to any object implementing IEnumerable. Implementing IList enabled virtualization for better performance. See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.ListView.
• Qt: Implement QAbstractItemModel, see https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qabstractitemmodel.html

Notify the UI the data source has changed

• GTK: GtkTreeModelIface has signals to let the view know rows were added, removed, updated, ...: https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/GtkTreeModel.html
• Cocoa: NSTableView::reloadData & friends: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nstableview/1528382-reloaddata
• UWP: the items source should additionally implement IList and INotifyCollectionChanged. ISupportIncrementalLoading can be implemented to support incremental loading. See "data virtualization" under Remarks section in https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.ListView#Remarks. Individual items will need to implement INotifyPropertyChanged to update the bindings to individual subcontrols in item template in the listview.
• Qt: Emit signals defined on QAbstractItemModel to notify view that rows have changed: rowsInserted, rowsMoved, rowsRemoved, ...

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nstableview/1534147-notenumberofrowschanged