[EditableComboBox] Add grouping support by xfortin-devolutions · Pull Request #591 · Devolutions/avalonia-extensions

Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) · 2026-07-16T17:48:42Z

Summary

Adds optional item grouping to EditableComboBox. Drop-down items can be grouped under headers, with a customizable group order and an empty group key that renders headerless (its items appear at the top with no header).

The feature reuses the proven GroupedComboBox design (interleave non-selectable header pseudo-items into the drop-down; empty group key renders headerless) rather than inventing a new one. Grouping is inert unless a group selector is configured, so existing EditableComboBox usage is unaffected.

What changed

Shared grouping core (combo-box-scoped names, since only the combo box controls use them)

Controls/ComboBoxGroupHeader.cs (new) — the header pseudo-item, extracted from GroupedComboBox so both controls share it.
Helpers/ComboBoxGroupedItemsBuilder.cs (new) — the group → order → interleave logic, extracted from GroupedComboBox.RebuildDisplayItems. GroupedComboBox now delegates to it (behavior-preserving).

EditableComboBox

New properties mirroring GroupedComboBox: GroupBinding / GroupSelector, GroupOrderAlphabetical, GroupOrderSelector / GroupOrderBinding, HeaderForeground, HeaderMargin, HeaderTemplate, EmptyGroupName.
Headers are built into the private drop-down list (filteredItems) — the public ItemsSource is never mutated.
Filter mode re-groups the filtered subset, so groups with no matches drop out along with their headers.
Header-safety: headers can't be selected, matched by text, or committed as a value; Down-arrow-on-open skips a leading header; a pointer click on a header is a no-op that keeps the drop-down open (matches GroupedComboBox).
InnerComboBox renders the reused GroupedComboBoxHeaderItem container for header rows (no new per-theme styling).

Sample

EditableComboBoxDemo gains a Grouping section mirroring the GroupedComboBox demo set (named groups, empty group with/without EmptyGroupName, scrolling/virtualized, HeaderTemplate, inner slots) plus a Live-tests panel. Page wrapped in a ScrollViewer so it scrolls.

Notes / intentional differences from GroupedComboBox

No inline "Pure XAML" header form — EditableComboBox grouping is data-driven (GroupBinding/GroupSelector), so headers aren't declared inline as items.
Items use EditableComboBoxDataTemplate with SelectedItemValue so the editable textbox shows a clean value.
Not yet included: live re-grouping on per-item PropertyChanged (collection add/remove is reactive; editing an item's group key updates on next open). Can be added if needed.

Testing

Full solution builds clean (0 errors, no new warnings).
PageCatalogTests + MainWindowNavigationTests pass (demo page + view model instantiate in all themes).
Manually verified in the SampleApp (MacClassic): grouped headers render and are non-selectable, keyboard skips them, headerless empty group sits at the top, filter drops empty groups, header clicks keep the drop-down open, selection still works.

⚠️ The EditableComboBoxDemo visual-regression baselines need regenerating — the page content changed, so it affects every theme it's tested in (MacClassic, LiquidGlass, DevExpress, Linux). Baselines are stored per-OS: the macOS set can be regenerated locally (UPDATE_BASELINES=true ./devtest --filter EditableCombo, one run covers all those themes); the Windows and Linux baseline sets are regenerated on their respective CI runners.

Rename GroupHeader -> ComboBoxGroupHeader and GroupedItemsBuilder -> ComboBoxGroupedItemsBuilder to scope these shared, combo-box-only helpers and avoid implying a general-purpose grouping utility.

Copilot

Pull request overview

Adds optional grouping support to EditableComboBox using shared grouping infrastructure from GroupedComboBox.

Changes:

Extracts shared group-header and item-building logic.
Adds grouping, ordering, templating, filtering, and selection safeguards.
Expands the SampleApp grouping demonstrations.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 8 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
`src/Devolutions.AvaloniaControls/README.md`	Documents grouping support.
`src/Devolutions.AvaloniaControls/Helpers/ComboBoxGroupedItemsBuilder.cs`	Builds grouped display lists.
`src/Devolutions.AvaloniaControls/Controls/GroupedComboBox/GroupedComboBox.axaml.cs`	Uses shared grouping infrastructure.
`src/Devolutions.AvaloniaControls/Controls/EditableComboBox/InnerComboBox.cs`	Creates and styles header containers.
`src/Devolutions.AvaloniaControls/Controls/EditableComboBox/EditableComboBox.axaml.cs`	Implements grouping behavior and APIs.
`src/Devolutions.AvaloniaControls/Controls/ComboBoxGroupHeader.cs`	Defines shared header pseudo-items.
`samples/SampleApp/ViewModels/EditableComboBoxViewModel.cs`	Supplies grouping demo data and commands.
`samples/SampleApp/DemoPages/EditableComboBoxDemo.axaml`	Adds grouping demonstrations and live tests.

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Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 8 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

GroupOrderBinding's getter was built against the item type but invoked with the group-key string, so a path binding like {Binding Group.SortOrder} threw InvalidCastException; it also formatted the value to a string, sorting numeric orders lexicographically (10 before 2). The shared builder now evaluates the order selector against a representative item of each group and keeps the raw value (BuildRawGetter), so it works for any IComparable and sorts numerically. The key-based GroupOrderSelector delegate is adapted onto the item, so its behavior is unchanged. Applied to both EditableComboBox and GroupedComboBox, and documented on the GroupOrderBinding property.

Model the sample food data with a shared FoodGroup(Name, SortOrder) that items reference, and add an "Order via binding" case (GroupOrderBinding bound to Group.SortOrder) to both the EditableComboBox and GroupedComboBox grouping demos.

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 11 out of 11 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Samuel Bergeron-Drouin (Samuel-B-D) · 2026-07-17T14:56:12Z

+                  <EditableComboBox.ItemTemplate>
+                    <EditableComboBoxDataTemplate x:DataType="viewModels:FoodItem" SelectedItemValue="{Binding Name}">
+                      <TextBlock Text="{Binding Name}" />
+                    </EditableComboBoxDataTemplate>
+                  </EditableComboBox.ItemTemplate>


It's good to be able to supply template (and kinda required for any ItemsControl), but we should also support ItemsControl's DisplayMemberBinding property, that would be used as a fallback when there's no template (both for the item in the dropdown and the displayed value; if there's a template but no SelectedItemValue binding then it would use that too).

In fact, wouldn't that render SelectedItemValue redundant / unneeded?

But since that's already like this, that would be a separate task.

Samuel Bergeron-Drouin (Samuel-B-D) · 2026-07-17T15:36:07Z

                else if (this.innerComboBox.SelectedIndex == -1)
                {
-                    this.innerComboBox.SelectedIndex = 0;
+                    // Skip a leading group header so the first arrow-down lands on a selectable item.


Shouldn't that be just when using grouping?

Add EditableComboBox grouping support.

0a14b63

Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) changed the title ~~[EditableComboBox] Add grouping support (DEVEX-402)~~ [EditableComboBox] Add grouping support Jul 16, 2026

Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) added 2 commits July 16, 2026 14:05

Prefix shared grouping helpers with ComboBox

ddab209

Rename GroupHeader -> ComboBoxGroupHeader and GroupedItemsBuilder -> ComboBoxGroupedItemsBuilder to scope these shared, combo-box-only helpers and avoid implying a general-purpose grouping utility.

Remove internal references from grouping demo

3f9af66

Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) force-pushed the EditableComboBox-grouping-support branch from 5dc4d2f to 3f9af66 Compare July 16, 2026 18:05

Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) requested a review from Copilot July 16, 2026 18:05

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) July 16, 2026 18:06 View session

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Comment thread src/Devolutions.AvaloniaControls/Controls/EditableComboBox/EditableComboBox.axaml.cs

Comment thread samples/SampleApp/DemoPages/EditableComboBoxDemo.axaml

Skip group headers in EditableComboBox keyboard navigation

875c156

Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) requested a review from Copilot July 16, 2026 18:55

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) July 16, 2026 18:56 View session

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Comment thread src/Devolutions.AvaloniaControls/Controls/EditableComboBox/EditableComboBox.axaml.cs Outdated

Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) added 2 commits July 17, 2026 10:32

Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) requested a review from Copilot July 17, 2026 14:32

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) July 17, 2026 14:33 View session

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Comment thread src/Devolutions.AvaloniaControls/Helpers/ComboBoxGroupedItemsBuilder.cs

Comment thread src/Devolutions.AvaloniaControls/Controls/GroupedComboBox/GroupedComboBox.axaml.cs

Skip nulls in CombBoxGroupedItemsBuilder.Build().

4ed59e1

Samuel Bergeron-Drouin (Samuel-B-D) approved these changes Jul 17, 2026

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[EditableComboBox] Add grouping support#591

[EditableComboBox] Add grouping support#591
Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) wants to merge 7 commits into
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EditableComboBox-grouping-support

Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) commented Jul 16, 2026 •

edited

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Samuel Bergeron-Drouin (Samuel-B-D) Jul 17, 2026

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Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) commented Jul 16, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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Summary

What changed

Notes / intentional differences from GroupedComboBox

Testing

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Xavier Fortin (xfortin-devolutions) commented Jul 16, 2026 •

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