Easily Disable Row Selection for a Silverlight DataGrid

This technique actually prevents the row from being selected and prevents an unwanted cell from being selected. The visual effect is that the row or cell in that row never appears to be selected.

I assume you know how to load you DataGrid with data, etc. In my example, I only have one column of data. The trick to this solution is almost all in code behind. Also, this all assumes that you have set IsReadOnly="True" either in the XAML or the code behind.

 

In this example my DataGrid is named dgAnnouncements. I handle the SelectionChanged event as show in the method below.

private void dgAnnouncements_SelectionChanged(object sender, SelectionChangedEventArgs e)
{
    dgAnnouncements.SelectedItem = null;
}

The above gets us most of the way there, however you will notice that the cell itself can still be selected. To handle this we have to do a trick.

In the XAML for the DataGrid you will need to add an invisible column at position 0 so that we can select it whenever someone tries to select another cell that they can see.

Here is an example of the XAML for the DataGrid.

<sdk:DataGrid x:Name="dgAnnouncements"
ItemsSource="{Binding Data, ElementName=dsAnnouncements}"
AutoGenerateColumns="False"
IsReadOnly="True"
CurrentCellChanged="DataGrid_CurrentCellChanged"
SelectionChanged="dgAnnouncements_SelectionChanged">

    <sdk:DataGrid.Columns>
        <sdk:DataGridTextColumn Binding="{Binding Path=Nothing}" MinWidth="0" MaxWidth="0" />
        <sdk:DataGridTextColumn Binding="{Binding Path=Title}"  />
    </sdk:DataGrid.Columns>
</sdk:DataGrid>

Here is the code behind to redirect the current cell to our invisible cell.

private void DataGrid_CurrentCellChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (dgAnnouncements.CurrentColumn != null)
    {
        dgAnnouncements.CurrentColumn = dgAnnouncements.Columns[0];
    }
}