Silverlight DataForm ItemsSource is null when DataForm is not visible

This is just a quick post:

When DataForm is not visible, then its ItemsSource collection is null. This can make sense, but it may also cause problems, imagine the following:

The DataForm is in Expander. On a click of a button you want to expand the Expander and add new item to the DataForm:

MyExpander.IsExpanded = true;
//this call passes
MyDataForm.AddNewItem();

//but here CurrentItem will be null
var vm = MyDataForm.CurrentItem as MyViewModel;

//and here you will get NullPointerException
vm.MyProperty = "value";

The problem is that when you set IsExpanded to true, the UI does not get updated right by the way, so you will have to force it by calling this.UpdateLayout(). After this the ItemsSource collection will be binded to whatever enumeration you have set in the XAML and the next call of AddNewItem() will set the CurrentItem property of DataForm to a non-null value.