wpf - Why does ItemContainerGenerator return null?

Question

I have a ListBox, and I need to set its ControlTemplate to a Virtualizing WrapPanel which is a class that extends VirtualizingPanel, using a style that looks like this:

<Style TargetType="{x:Type ListBox}" x:Key="PhotoListBoxStyle">
                <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="White" />
                <Setter Property="Template">
                    <Setter.Value>
                        <ControlTemplate  TargetType="{x:Type ListBox}" >
                            <s:VirtualizingVerticalWrapPanel>
                            </s:VirtualizingVerticalWrapPanel>
                        </ControlTemplate>
                    </Setter.Value>
                </Setter>
            </Style>

Now, in the private method of Virtualizing WrapPanel below I try to access this.ItemContainerGenerator, but I get null value, any idea what's the problem ??

private void RealizeFirstItem()
{
    IItemContainerGenerator generator = this.ItemContainerGenerator;
    GeneratorPosition pos = generator.GeneratorPositionFromIndex(0);

    using (generator.StartAt(pos, GeneratorDirection.Forward))
    {
        UIElement element = generator.GenerateNext() as UIElement;

         generator.PrepareItemContainer(element);

                    this.AddInternalChild(element);
    }
 }

Answer 1

I think I had a similar problem and this helped:

var necessaryChidrenTouch = this.Children;
IItemContainerGenerator generator = this.ItemContainerGenerator;

... for some reason you have to "touch" the children collection in order for the ItemContainerGenerator to initialize properly.