c# - Disallow/Block selection of disabled combobox item in wpf

Question

I'm writing an application wherein I would like to disable few items in the ComboBox and also want to disallow/block selection of disabled items. Please note ComboBox in main window has another ComboBox as ComboBox Item init (that is decided at run time by data template selector).

With below code I'm able to disable a ComboBox within ComboBox but it would not stop user from selecting that disabled ComboBox item. Any help in disallow/block selection of disabled items would be helpful.

Below are the code snippets

ComboBox in main window:

<Grid>
    <ComboBox HorizontalAlignment="Left" VerticalAlignment="Top" 
              Width="120" Margin="87.2,44.8,0,0" 
              ItemsSource="{Binding Cars}" 
              ItemsPanel="{DynamicResource ItemsPanelTemplateHorizontal}"
              ItemTemplateSelector="{StaticResource QualityComboBoxTemplateSelector}"
              SelectedItem="{Binding SelectedItm}"/>
</Grid>

Data template selector:

public class QualityComboBoxTemplateSelector : DataTemplateSelector
{
    public override DataTemplate SelectTemplate(object item, DependencyObject container)
    {
        var element = container as FrameworkElement;

        var dataTemplate = element.FindResource(((item is string) && item.Equals("Ferrari")) ?
                                                       "DataTemplateTopLevelCombobox2" : "DataTemplateTopLevelCombobox1") as DataTemplate;

        return dataTemplate;
    }
}

Data templates for above ComboBox:

<DataTemplate x:Key="DataTemplateTopLevelCombobox1">
    <Border BorderBrush="Black" BorderThickness="1" >
        <TextBlock HorizontalAlignment="Left" 
                   TextWrapping="Wrap" Text="{Binding}"     
                   VerticalAlignment="Top"/>
    </Border>
</DataTemplate>

<DataTemplate x:Key="DataTemplateTopLevelCombobox2">
    <Border Width="100">
        <ComboBox Text="Custom" Height="21.96"
        ItemsSource="{Binding DataContext.Models, RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType={x:Type Window}}}"
        IsEnabled="{Binding DataContext.EnableCombo, RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType={x:Type Window}}}" />
    </Border>
</DataTemplate>

Answer 1

You can achieve this by setting IsEnabled property of a ComboBoxItem to false;

So each item in ComboBox's ItemSource (i.e. Cars in your case) can be an object having some property (say IsSelectable) specifying whether it should be enabled or disabled and then use it with a style to make an item un-selectable. something like this -

<Style TargetType="ComboBoxItem"> 
   <Setter Property="IsEnabled" Value="{Binding IsSelectable}"/> 
</Style> 

Update:

<Grid>
    <ComboBox
        Width="120"
        Margin="87.2,44.8,0,0"
        HorizontalAlignment="Left"
        VerticalAlignment="Top"
        ItemTemplateSelector="{StaticResource QualityComboBoxTemplateSelector}"
        ItemsPanel="{DynamicResource ItemsPanelTemplateHorizontal}"
        ItemsSource="{Binding Cars}"
        SelectedItem="{Binding SelectedItm}">
        <ComboBox.ItemContainerStyle>
            <Style TargetType="ComboBoxItem">
                <Setter
                    Property="IsEnabled"
                    Value="{Binding IsSelectable}" />
            </Style>
        </ComboBox.ItemContainerStyle>
    </ComboBox>
</Grid>