WPF control binding to an observable collection - give me my Prozak

God must have been off work when the binding system came to be. How can it be so very hard to get it to work? In pure frustration i googled "f**k wpf binding" and got well over a million hits.

All I want to do is display a few items in a list - in VB6 days i would have been done with all the spaghetti controlling adding and removing by now.

I had a working model up and running but decided to go from a listview to a datagridview instead. Made a few (small?) changes and kabam - im back to "nothing works" again. I get ArgumentNullExceptions, empty datagrid and a bunch of grey hairs on my head.

Tried to go back to listview but now that wont work either. I have not made any code changes to the code-behind so I'm pretty sure that part is OK.

Okay, here goes the code - now i'm switching to de-caff and taking my Prozac double time:

(and thank you guys for reading my rants :) )

<Window x:Class="winSessions"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:local="clr-namespace:MyApp_2013"
    Title="winSessions" Height="300" Width="506"><Window.Resources><!--<local:CoolItemsCollectionClass x:Key="students"/>--></Window.Resources><Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot"><Grid.RowDefinitions><RowDefinition Height="32" /><RowDefinition /></Grid.RowDefinitions><Label FontFamily="Arial" FontSize="22" FontWeight="Bold" FontStyle="Italic" Foreground="White" Background="LightSteelBlue">Sessions stored in unit memory</Label><Border Grid.Row="1" BorderThickness="12"><DataGrid 
                Name="lvwSessions"     
                    AutoGenerateColumns="False" 
                    ItemsSource="{Binding}" 
                    CanUserResizeColumns="True" 
                    CanUserReorderColumns="True" 
                    CanUserSortColumns="True" 
                    AlternatingRowBackground="Gainsboro"  
                    AlternationCount="2" 
                    FrozenColumnCount="1"><DataGrid.Columns><DataGridTextColumn Binding="{Binding Path=Index}" Header="Index"/><DataGridTextColumn Binding="{Binding Path=Filename}" Header="Filename"/><DataGridTextColumn Binding="{Binding Path=Size}" Header="Size"/><DataGridTextColumn Binding="{Binding Path=Guid}" Header="Guid"/></DataGrid.Columns><!--<DataGrid.RowDetailsTemplate><DataTemplate><TextBlock Text="{Binding Filename}" FontSize="13" Foreground="White" Background="#FF3F618D"/></DataTemplate></DataGrid.RowDetailsTemplate>--></DataGrid><!--<ListView HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Name="lvwSessions" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" ItemsSource="{Binding}" IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem="True"><GridView.ColumnCollection><GridViewColumn Width="40" Header="Index" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=Index}" /><GridViewColumn Width="140" Header="Filename" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=Filename}" /><GridViewColumn Width="60" Header="Size" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=Size}" /><GridViewColumn Width="140" Header="Guid" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=Guid}" /></GridView.ColumnCollection></ListView>--></Border><!--</ScrollViewer>--></Grid></Window>

Option Strict On
Option Explicit On
Imports System.Collections.ObjectModel
Imports System.ComponentModel

Public Class winSessions
    Private _fh As clsFilehandler
    Dim ObservableCoolItemsCollection As CoolItemsCollectionClass

    Dim aView As ICollectionView

    Public Sub New()

        ' This call is required by the designer.
        InitializeComponent()

        ' Add any initialization after the InitializeComponent() call.
        ObservableCoolItemsCollection = CType(Me.Resources("ObservableCoolItemsCollection"), CoolItemsCollectionClass)
        aView = CollectionViewSource.GetDefaultView(ObservableCoolItemsCollection)
    End Sub

    Public Sub Init(ByRef Filehandler As clsFilehandler)
        _fh = Filehandler
        ObservableCoolItemsCollection = New CoolItemsCollectionClass
        '_ft = CType(Me.Resources("_ft"), clsFileTable)
        aView = CollectionViewSource.GetDefaultView(ObservableCoolItemsCollection)

        For i As Integer = 0 To Filehandler.Count
            ObservableCoolItemsCollection.Add(Filehandler.Entry(i))
        Next
        'lvwSessions.DataContext = ObservableCoolItemsCollection
        'ObservableCoolItemsCollection = CType(Me.Resources("ObservableCoolItemsCollection"), CoolItemsCollectionClass)
        Me.DataContext = ObservableCoolItemsCollection

    End Sub
End Class

Public Class CoolItemsCollectionClass
    Inherits System.Collections.ObjectModel.ObservableCollection(Of clsUnitFile)
    Public Sub New()
        'Me.Add(New clsUnitFile(Guid.NewGuid, "Testentry", 24, 0))
    End Sub
End Class