LongListMultiSelector - can you Suppress the Default Tap Behaviour that puts List into edit mode? - windows-phone-8

Question

Ok, I hope this doesn't have an embarrassingly obvious answer, but I could not find a solution through searching.
I'd like my longlistmulti to function basically like the Mail app, i.e. having the "select" appbar button put the list into Edit mode, so you can perform operations on it.
However I'd like to suppress the behavior where the list is responding to a tap on the left side of any of the items, that first 10% part of the item's width, that puts the List in the Edit mode.
I have a button as part of the item template, that is pretty flush against the left side, that I need as a trigger for it's own event handler for each item.
So I just want to block the event that is putting it into edit mode via tapping on items. Hope this can be done.
Steve
A quick addit'l note: I'd like to suppress this default behavior regardless, even if I do decide to not have that button as my final implementation.. i didn't want to factor that button as a permanent consideration.

Answer 1

You have a couple of options here. One is handling the IsSelectionEnabledChanged event, and the other is modifying the control template. If you want to place the list into edit mode yourself, I'd suggest using the template modification method, as the event handler might be a bit convoluted when it comes to determining where the change event came from.
From the Document Outline pane (CTRL+W, U to make visible), right click your list control, and navigate to Edit Additional Templates => Edit ItemContainerStyle => Edit a Copy... Use the dialog to name and place the template in your preferred resource dictionary. Look for the rectangles named InnerHintPanel and OuterHintPanel and delete them. This will remove the hit area for activating edit mode. The XAML for these rectangles is reproduced below.
<Grid HorizontalAlignment="Stretch">
...
<Rectangle x:Name="InnerHintPanel" Grid.Column="0" Width="24"
Height="{TemplateBinding HintPanelHeight}"
HorizontalAlignment="Left"
Fill="Transparent"
StrokeThickness="0">
<Rectangle.RenderTransform>
<CompositeTransform TranslateX="24"/>
</Rectangle.RenderTransform>
</Rectangle>
...
</Grid>
<Rectangle x:Name="OuterHintPanel" Width="24"
HorizontalAlignment="Left"
Height="{TemplateBinding HintPanelHeight}"
Fill="{TemplateBinding Background}"
StrokeThickness="0" Opacity="0.0"/>
You should probably delete all storyboard animations that have Storyboard.TargetName set to one of these elements' names as well, otherwise the transition in control state will cause exceptions if you enter edit mode and those elements cannot be found.