wpf - ElementName Binding is failing

Question

I have the following XAML:

<Grid>
    <Grid.RowDefinitions>
        ...
    </Grid.RowDefinitions>
    <DataGrid Grid.Row="0" ...>
        <DataGrid.Columns>
            ...
        </DataGrid.Columns>
    </DataGrid>

    <DockPanel Grid.Row="2">
        <CheckBox x:Name="DisplayMarkers" DockPanel.Dock="Top" Content="Display Data Points?"
                Margin="8,5,0,5" d:LayoutOverrides="Height" HorizontalAlignment="Left" IsChecked="False" />
        <vf:Chart DockPanel.Dock="Top" ScrollingEnabled="False" ZoomingEnabled="True" ToolBarEnabled="True">
            <vf:DataSeries AxisYType="Secondary" RenderAs="Line" DataSource="{Binding CdTeRoughnessList}"
                    XValueType="DateTime"
                    MarkerEnabled="{Binding ElementName=DisplayMarkers, Path=IsChecked}" Color="Navy"
                    LegendText="Roughness Std. Dev.">

This binding is failing: MarkerEnabled="{Binding ElementName=DisplayMarkers, Path=IsChecked}"

I'm trying to bind to the IsChecked property on my Checkbox named 'DisplayMarkers". When I run this, in debug mode in VS 2010, the output window shows the binding is failing. It can't find the element named 'Checkbox'. Could anyone tell me why?

The error I'm getting from VS is:

System.Windows.Data Error: 4 : Cannot find source for binding with reference 

    'ElementName=DisplayMarkers'. BindingExpression:Path=IsChecked; DataItem=null; target element is 'DataSeries' (Name=''); target property is 'MarkerEnabled' (type 'Nullable`1')

Answer 1

You might not have a namescope where you try to bind, you could try to replace the ElementName construct with Source={x:Reference DisplayMarkers}.

The gist of it is that if you have elements in XAML which are not in the visual or logical tree you will not be able to use certain bindings like RelativeSource and ElementName, I suspect that DataSeries is not in any tree either (it sure sounds like it's abstract).

For a workaround for potential cyclical dependency errors see: https://stackoverflow.com/a/6858917/546730