Create a DataGridToolTipTextColumn for the Silverlight DataGrid

Last I have created a DataGrid column which views a tooltip when you hover over the content (text) of the column. These can be usefull when you have many columns within long textdata.
For the tooltip I have used the ‘Silverlight Advanced ToolTips’ library of Xavier De Coster which you can find on CodePlex.

Create a new class in your project and paste the following code:

public class DataGridToolTipTextColumn : DataGridTextColumn
    {
        protected override FrameworkElement GenerateElement(DataGridCell cell,
                                                            object dataItem)
        {
            TextBlock textBlock = new TextBlock();
            textBlock.SetBinding(TextBlock.TextProperty, this.Binding);
            textBlock.Margin = new Thickness(0, 3, 0, 3); ;
            textBlock.VerticalAlignment = VerticalAlignment.Center;
            Silverlight.Controls.ToolTips.ToolTip toolTip =
                            new Silverlight.Controls.ToolTips.ToolTip();
            toolTip.InitialDelay = 2;
            toolTip.DisplayTime = new Duration(new TimeSpan(0, 0, 5));
            TextBlock textBlockForTt = new TextBlock();
            textBlockForTt.SetBinding(TextBlock.TextProperty, this.Binding);
            toolTip.Content = textBlockForTt;
            toolTip.Language = XmlLanguage.GetLanguage(Thread.CurrentThread.
                                                      CurrentUICulture.Name);
            Silverlight.Controls.ToolTips.ToolTipService.SetToolTip(textBlock,
                                                                    toolTip);

            cell.Content = textBlock;

            return textBlock;
        }

    }

Add the namespace to XAML where the class is in and in the DataGrid control you can use the DataGridToolTipTextColumn with the following code:

 
<Controls:DataGridToolTipTextColumn Width="*"
                                    Header="Order"
                                    IsReadOnly="True"
                                    Binding="{Binding Ordername}" />