Exercise - Data binding and events

Completed

In this exercise, you create a basic Todo list component inside your Blazor app.

Create the Todo page

  1. Create the Todo page:

    In Visual Studio, right-click the Pages folder in Solution Explorer and select Add > Razor Component. Name the component Todo.razor.

    In Visual Studio Code, right-click on the Pages folder in Solution Explorer and select Add New File.. > Razor component. Name the component Todo.razor. The file should be created inside of the Pages folder

    Important

    Razor component file names require a capitalized first letter. Expand the Pages folder and confirm that the Todo component file name starts with a capital letter T. The file name should be Todo.razor.

  2. Open the Todo component and add an @page Razor directive to the top of the file with a relative URL of /todo.

    @page "/todo"
    
    <h3>Todo</h3>
    
    @code {
    
    }
    
  3. Save the Pages/Todo.razor file

Add the Todo component to the navigation bar

The app's layout uses the NavMenu component. Layouts are components that allow you to avoid duplication of content in an app. The NavLink component renders an HTML anchor tag that can be styled to provide a cue in the app's UI when the app URL matches the link.

Expand the Shared folder in the Solution Explorer and open the NavMenu.razor file. In the <nav>...</nav> section of the NavMenu component, add the following new <div>...</div> and NavLink component for the Todo component.

In Shared/NavMenu.razor:

<div class="@NavMenuCssClass" @onclick="ToggleNavMenu">
    <nav class="flex-column">

        <!-- ... -->

        <div class="nav-item px-3">
            <NavLink class="nav-link" href="todo">
                <span class="oi oi-list-rich" aria-hidden="true"></span> Todo
            </NavLink>
        </div>
    </nav>
</div>

Save the Shared/NavMenu.razor file. The browser should refresh automatically and now have the Todo entry on the navigation bar:

Screenshot of the todo navigation element just added

Create a Todo Item

In the Solution Explorer, right-click the Data folder, then select Add > Class. Name the new class TodoItem.cs, then select Add. This new class will hold a C# class that represents a todo item.

Replace the code from Line 7 down with the following C# code for the TodoItem class. Declare the Title as a nullable string by using ?. Save the file.

namespace BlazorHybridApp.Data;

public class TodoItem
{
    public string? Title { get; set; }
    public bool IsDone { get; set; } = false;
}

Bind a list of TodoItems

You're now ready to bind a collection of TodoItem objects to HTML in Blazor. We'll accomplish this by making the following changes in the Pages/Todo.razor file:

  • Add the using declaration for TodoItem with @using BlazorHybridApp.Data.
  • Add a field for the todo items in the @code block. The Todo component uses this field to maintain the state of the todo list.
  • Add unordered list markup and a foreach loop to render each todo item as a list item (<li>).
@page "/todo"
@using BlazorHybridApp.Data

<h3>Todo</h3>

<ul class="list-unstyled">
    @foreach (var todo in todos)
    {
        <li>@todo.Title</li>
    }
</ul>

@code {
    private List<TodoItem> todos = new();
}

Add form elements to create todos

  1. The app requires UI elements for adding todo items to the list. Add a text input (<input>) and a button (<button>) below the unordered list (<ul>...</ul>):

    @page "/todo"
    @using BlazorHybridApp.Data
    
    <h3>Todo</h3>
    
    <ul class="list-unstyled">
        @foreach (var todo in todos)
        {
            <li>@todo.Title</li>
        }
    </ul>
    
    <input placeholder="Something todo" />
    <button>Add todo</button>
    
    @code {
        private List<TodoItem> todos = new();
    }
    
  2. When the Add todo button is selected, nothing happens because an event handler isn't attached to the button.

    Add an AddTodo method to the Todo component and register the method for the button using the @onclick attribute. The AddTodo C# method is called when the button is selected:

    <input placeholder="Something todo" />
    <button @onclick="AddTodo">Add todo</button>
    
    @code {
        private List<TodoItem> todos = new();
    
        private void AddTodo()
        {
            // Todo: Add the todo
        }
    }
    
  3. To get the title of the new todo item, add a newTodo string field at the top of the @code block:

    @code {
        private List<TodoItem> todos = new();
        private string? newTodo;
    
        // Omitted for brevity...
    }
    

    Modify the <input> element to bind newTodo with the @bind attribute:

    <input placeholder="Something todo" @bind="newTodo" />
    
  4. Update the AddTodo method to add the TodoItem with the specified title to the list. Clear the value of the text input by setting newTodo to an empty string:

    @page "/todo"
    @using BlazorHybridApp.Data
    
    <h3>Todo</h3>
    
    <ul class="list-unstyled">
        @foreach (var todo in todos)
        {
            <li>@todo.Title</li>
        }
    </ul>
    
    <input placeholder="Something todo" @bind="newTodo" />
    <button @onclick="AddTodo">Add todo</button>
    
    @code {
        private List<TodoItem> todos = new();
        private string? newTodo;
    
        private void AddTodo()
        {
            if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(newTodo))
            {
                todos.Add(new TodoItem { Title = newTodo });
                newTodo = string.Empty;
            }
        }
    }
    
  5. Save the Pages/Todo.razor file. Rebuild and restart the app.

  6. You can make the title text for each todo editable, and a checkbox can help the user keep track of completed items. Add a checkbox input for each todo item and bind its value to the IsDone property. Change the @todo.Title to an <input> element bound to todo.Title with @bind:

    <ul class="list-unstyled">
        @foreach (var todo in todos)
        {
            <li>
                <input type="checkbox" @bind="todo.IsDone" />
                <input @bind="todo.Title" />
            </li>
        }
    </ul>    
    
  7. Update the <h3> header to show a count of the number of todo items that aren't complete (IsDone is false).

    <h3>Todo (@todos.Count(todo => !todo.IsDone))</h3>
    
  8. Save the Pages/Todo.razor file and run the app again.

  9. Add items, edit items, and mark items done to test the component.

    Screenshot of the completed ToDo page