WPF DataGrid CheckBox Single Click Checking/Unchecking

WPF DataGrid has a very annoying behaviour of forcing users to click twice on a checkbox in order to check or uncheck it. There are a number of solutions proposing handling mouse preview events and switching a DataGrid into the edit mode manually. The problem with such solutions is that the require writing quite a lot of extra code that seems to be an overkill for such a minor, yet irritating problem. I propose a better option, to use a DataGridTemplateColumn instead of DataGridCheckBoxColumn.

Indeed, you can easily place a CheckBox inside a DataGridTemplateColumn, bind it to a corresponding property and it will be checkable/uncheckable with a single click.

XAML

<DataGrid Name="dgProducts" AutoGenerateColumns="False" CurrentCellChanged="dgProducts_CurrentCellChanged">
    <DataGrid.Columns>
        <DataGridTextColumn Header="Name" Binding="{Binding Path=Name}"/>
        <DataGridTextColumn Header="Price" Binding="{Binding Path=Price}"/>
        <DataGridTemplateColumn Header="In Stock">
            <DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate>
                <DataTemplate>
                    <CheckBox IsChecked="{Binding Path=IsInStock}">
                </DataTemplate>
            </DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate>
        </DataGridTemplateColumn>
    </DataGrid.Columns>
</DataGrid>

Code-behind

public partial class MainWindow : Window
{
  ProductsEntities db = new ProductsEntities();

  public MainWindow()
  {
    InitializeComponent();

    var products = from p in this.db.Products
                    select p;

    dgProducts.ItemsSource = products;
  }

  private void dgProducts_CurrentCellChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
  {
    this.db.SaveChanges();
  }
}

However, this piece of code still has a problem, in order to send update to a database user must edit any other column after modifying a checkbox. But it’s pretty easy to overcome this issue, first of all, we have to put UpdateSourceTrigger="PropertyChanged" to the binding section of a checkbox and then handle its Click event.

XAML:

<CheckBox IsChecked="{Binding Path=IsInStock, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}" Click="CheckBox_Click"/>

Code-Behind:

private void CheckBox_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
  MessageBox.Show("click");
  this.db.SaveChanges();
}