MVVM move RibbonTabs into separate viewmodels - c#

I use Windows Ribbon for WPF with Caliburn Micro. Is it possible to move RibbonTabs into different views with ViewModels so views can be more readable?
I have MainToolbarViewModel class bound with a MainToolbarView.
MainToolbarViewModel:
public TabViewModel Tab { get; set; }
public MainToolbarViewModel()
{
this.Tab = new TabViewModel();
}
MainToolbarView:
<ribbon:Ribbon HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Top" SelectedIndex="0">
<Ribbon.HelpPaneContent>
<RibbonButton SmallImageSource="../Resources/WindowsIcons/help.png"></RibbonButton>
</Ribbon.HelpPaneContent>
<ContentControl x:Name="Tab"></ContentControl>
</ribbon:Ribbon>
I want the ContentControl to work as a RibbonTab. This approach works well with standard controls, but with ribbon it just simply doesn't show anything.
TabViewModel:
public class TabViewModel : Screen
{
public TabViewModel()
{
DisplayName = "New Tab";
}
}
TabView:
<UserControl ......>
<RibbonTab IsSelected="True" Header="{Binding DisplayName}">
<RibbonGroup Header="Types">
<RibbonButton Content="Test"></RibbonButton>
</RibbonGroup>
</RibbonTab>
</UserControl>
I read about making ViewModels for RibbonTab, RibbonGroup, RibbonButton but this just seems crazy, because I would need to create ViewModel for every control.
Additionally most of the answers I read were at least 1 year old. Anything changed since? What is the easiest way to move RibbonTabs to a different viewmodel?
UPDATE:
<ContentControl x:Name="Tab"></ContentControl>
Renders RibbonTab's content inside its header, so basically I have RibbonGroup
inside RibbonTab's header.
I think it's because Ribbon treats <ContentControl> as a header of some sort rather than RibbonTab.

Related

WPF/MVVM: switching between views

I'm trying to learn WPF/MVVM, and I'm currently working on how to switch between views. I've started by finding some example to study in the interntet. The one I'm using is quite simple: two views (named "Home and "Account") that only display a label, to keep the xaml and VM simple, and a main window with two buttons to switch between the views.
The DataTemplates are declared in the App.xaml file (together with the namespaces), so they should be global to the whole project:
<Application.Resources>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type viewmodels:HomeViewModel}">
<views:HomeView/>
</DataTemplate>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type viewmodels:AccountViewModel}">
<views:AccountView/>
</DataTemplate>
</Application.Resources>
The way I've understood it, the trick is done by a third VM (called MainViewModel.cs) that implements a SelectedViewModel attribute that keeps track of the VM that must be displayed, plus and ICommand bound to the buttons:
private BaseViewModel _selectedViewModel;
public BaseViewModel SelectedViewModel
{
get { return _selectedViewModel; }
set
{
_selectedViewModel = value;
OnPropertyChanged(nameof(SelectedViewModel));
}
}
public ICommand UpdateViewCommand { get; set; }
MainWindow.xaml looks like this:
<ContentControl Grid.Row="0" Content="{Binding SelectedViewModel}"/>
<StackPanel Grid.Row="1" Orientation="Horizontal" HorizontalAlignment="Center">
<Button Margin="10" Width="200" Content="Home" Command="{Binding UpdateViewCommand}" CommandParameter="Home"/>
<Button Margin="10" Width="200" Content="Account" Command="{Binding UpdateViewCommand}" CommandParameter="Account"/>
</StackPanel>
In a separate class file (UpdateViewModel.cs) the UpdateViewModel class implements the Execute method as follows:
public void Execute (object parameter)
{
if (parameter.ToString() == "Home")
{
viewModel.SelectedViewModel = new HomeViewModel();
}
else if (parameter.ToString() == "Account")
{
viewModel.SelectedViewModel = new AccountViewModel();
}
}
I hope I've given the idea without boring you. It all works and lets me understand the basics. Now I wanted to try a variant, i.e. take one view (the "Account" one) and implement a button that would switch directly to the other view. I thought all I had to do was to bind the button to the UpdateViewModel class, and initially I modified the Account.xaml code as follows:
<Button Content="Button" Command="{Binding Path=UpdateViewCommand}" CommandParameter="Home"/>
The program runs, but when I click on the button in the Account view, nothing happens. So I changed this to something more complex:
<UserControl.DataContext>
<src:MainViewModel/>
</UserControl.DataContext>
...
<Button Content="Button" Command="{Binding Path=UpdateViewCommand}" CommandParameter="Home"/>
But the result is the same. I suspect it has to do with the binding, but can't see how to change it. Anybody can help?
Welcome to SO!
Your button bindings are done relative to the current DataContext, so binding to UpdateViewCommand in your AccountView (say) will try to bind to the UpdateViewCommand in your AccountViewModel, rather than your MainViewModel.
There are two ways to solve this. The first is to change your button bindings to bind to the parent's view model instead:
<Button Content="Button" Command="{Binding Path=DataContext.UpdateViewCommand, RelativeSource={RelativeSource AncestorType={x:Type local:MainWindow}}}" CommandParameter="Home"/>
A major disadvantage here, of course, is that the visual hierarchy your child views reside in may not always be as predictable as this.
The second (better) way is to add UpdateViewCommand handlers to each of your child view models, and then have them pass control on to whatever you actually want to handle it. In practice you would typically create a base class for all your children, to reduce code duplication, and you would create a service (e.g. INavigationService) for them to call. Your MainViewModel (say) would then implement this interface, and you would use dependency injection to inject that reference into the child view models at their moment of creation (or just have the parent pass itself directly into their constructors, if you don't want to use a full DI framework).

WPF autoscale changing control [duplicate]

I have a WPF application with multiple views. I want to switch from view 1 to view 2 and from there I can switch to multiple views. So I want a button on view 1 that loads view2 in the same window.
I tried those things, but can't get it to work.
How to navigate through windows with MVVM Light for WPF?
https://galasoft.ch/posts/2011/01/navigation-in-a-wp7-application-with-mvvm-light
From the first link, the problem is that I don't understand the ViewModelLocator code. They call the CreateMain(); function but where is this defined, and how can I switch to another view from inside a view.
Firstly, you don't need any of those toolkits/frameworks to implement MVVM. It can be as simple as this... let's assume that we have a MainViewModel, and PersonViewModel and a CompanyViewModel, each with their own related view and each extending an abstract base class BaseViewModel.
In BaseViewModel, we can add common properties and/or ICommand instances and implement the INotifyPropertyChanged interface. As they all extend the BaseViewModel class, we can have this property in the MainViewModel class that can be set to any of our view models:
public BaseViewModel ViewModel { get; set; }
Of course, you'd be implementing the INotifyPropertyChanged interface correctly on your properties unlike this quick example. Now in App.xaml, we declare some simple DataTemplates to connect the views with the view models:
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type ViewModels:MainViewModel}">
<Views:MainView />
</DataTemplate>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type ViewModels:PersonViewModel}">
<Views:PersonView />
</DataTemplate>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type ViewModels:CompanyViewModel}">
<Views:CompanyView />
</DataTemplate>
Now, wherever we use one of our BaseViewModel instances in our application, these DataTemplates will tell the framework to display the related view instead. We can display them like this:
<ContentControl Content="{Binding ViewModel}" />
So all we need to do now to switch to a new view is to set the ViewModel property from the MainViewModel class:
ViewModel = new PersonViewModel();
Finally, how do we change the views from other views? Well there are several possible ways to do this, but the easiest way is to add a Binding from the child view directly to an ICommand in the MainViewModel. I use a custom version of the RelayComand, but you can use any type you like and I'm guessing that you'll get the picture:
public ICommand DisplayPersonView
{
get { return new ActionCommand(action => ViewModel = new PersonViewModel(),
canExecute => !IsViewModelOfType<Person>()); }
}
In the child view XAML:
<Button Command="{Binding DataContext.DisplayPersonView, RelativeSource=
{RelativeSource AncestorType={x:Type MainView}}, Mode=OneWay}" />
That's it! Enjoy.
When i first started wiht MVVM I also struggled with the different MVVM-frameworks and especially the navigation part. Therefore I use this little tutorial i found, that Rachel Lim has created. It's very nice and well explained.
Have a look at it on the following link:
http://rachel53461.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/navigation-with-mvvm-2/
Hope it helped you :)
Maybe this link will help you. Just set the NavigateTo property to the view which you need to display on the window.
As an example you can do something like
<Window x:Class="MainWindowView" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
xmlns:meffed="http:\\www.codeplex.com\MEFedMVVM"
meffed:ViewModelLocator.NonSharedViewModel="YourViewModel"
WindowStartupLocation="CenterScreen">
<Button meffed:NavigationExtensions.NavigateTo="firstview"
meffed:NavigationExtensions.NavigationHost="{Binding ElementName=_viewContainer}"
meffed:NavigationExtensions.NavigateOnceLoaded="False"
Visibility="Visible" />
<ContentControl x:Name="_viewContainer" Margin="0,0,0,10" />
<Window>
Then the class file would be
public partial class MainWindowView : Window
{
public MainWindowView()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
public ContentControl ViewContainer { get { return _viewContainer; } }
}
Then you can define each view as UserControl and then using the link I gave above bind the button's meffed:NavigationExtensions.NavigateTo="secondView". To target the ContentControl of the Window just use a RelativeSource binding. For e.g
meffed:NavigationExtensions.NavigationHost="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource Mode=FindAncestor, AncestorType={x:Type Window}},Path=ViewContainer}"
In each of the view just see that you annotate the code behind class definition with the [NavigationView("firstview")] and so on.
It is complicated for first time but it will be very easy once you understand the idea.
<ContentControl x:Name="K.I.S.S" Content="{Binding ViewModel, Converter={StaticResource ViewLocator}}"/>

UI Implementation, best route to take

I'm working on a small application that I need some assistance with implementing.
The gist is I would like to create a grid-like container that houses a dynamic number of the identical column-like structures. Inside each column-like structure is a few text fields and radio buttons that the user can interact with.
I've been looking into some different WPF objects that may be of some help, but I'm pretty overwhelmed.
Some things I've thought of:
The column-like structure can be a custom built UserControl. This UserControl will have all the logic to deal with the interactions of the various buttons and text fields.
We can use a StackPanel, set to Horizontal, to house these UserControls. From what I've gathered, a StackPanel seems like it may be the perfect container for my purpose.
Some questions I have:
Will I need to create a .xaml for the UserControl?
In the event that more UserControls that can be displayed are added, does the StackPanel provide a way to scroll from left to right with a horizontal scroll bar?
Do I need to custom define the size of UserControl, or is it possible to just specify a set width and use the height of the StackPanel?
Is there an easier or more appropriate solution?
Lastly, I've included a very rough sketch to provide a visual idea of what I'm looking to do:
I will try to answer your questions:
You shall definitely extract a control for each part of your control which is used more than once.
A stack panel is a container, is similar to a div in HTML. If you want to show a scroll, you better use ScrollViewer instead of Stackpanel.
If the height of the StackPanel/ScrollViewer is set, controls inside them, will respect that limit unless you actually set an explicit height for the child elements. If the height of the Stackpanel/ScrollViewer is not set, the children elements will be stretched (so, in order to fit into the parent, you have to specify a height). You can decide, however, how you want to do it.
I think that is a god solution to extract a control for each redundant part and use a ScrollViewer!
If something is unclear, please let me know! Good luck :)
I would start by reading a bit about the MVVM pattern which plays well with WPF. Other than that I would use a ListView instead of a horizontal stackpanel and a scrollviewer. I Would prefer my data to expand vertically than horizontally. Here's some sample code to use.
Here's your model class:
public enum CustomOption
{
Option1,
Option2,
Option3
}
public class Item
{
public string Value1 { get; set; }
public string Value2 { get; set; }
public string Value3 { get; set; }
CustomOption Option { get; set; }
}
Here's your ViewModel:
public class MainWindowVM
{
public ObservableCollection<Item> Items { get; set; }
}
And here's your MainWindow:
<ScrollViewer
<ListView ItemsSource="{Binding Items}">
<ListView.Resources>
<ObjectDataProvider x:Key="EnumValues" MethodName="GetValues" ObjectType="{x:Type System:Enum}">
<ObjectDataProvider.MethodParameters>
<x:Type TypeName="local:CustomOption"/>
</ObjectDataProvider.MethodParameters>
</ObjectDataProvider>
</ListView.Resources>
<ListView.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
<TextBlock Text="Value1" Margin="5"/>
<TextBox Text="{Binding Value1}" Margin="2"/>
<TextBlock Text="Value2" Margin="5"/>
<TextBox Text="{Binding Value2}" Margin="2"/>
<TextBlock Text="Value3" Margin="5"/>
<TextBox Text="{Binding Value3}" Margin="2"/>
<TextBlock Text="Option" Margin="5"/>
<ComboBox ItemsSource="{Binding Source ={StaticResource EnumValues}}" SelectedItem="{Binding Option}" Margin="5"/>
</StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>
</ListView.ItemTemplate>
</ListView>
</ScrollViewer>
This is a very simplistic example to get you started. You can play around to get a much better looking style and layout. I used a ComboBox instead of RadioButtons which I dislike. You also need to set the DataContext of your MainWindow as the MainWindowVM somewhere. You can do that when your application starts for now.

How do you wire up views in Silverlight and MVVM using a TreeView?

I am building a Silverlight app which comprises a TreeView of menu options in a lefthand column and a ContentView in a righthand column. The idea is that the SelectedItemChanged event of the TreeView will change the view in the content area.
What is the 'purest MVVM' way of achieving this?
My idea is to have a TreeMenuView and TreeMenuViewModel for managing the menu events, but after that I'm a bit lost. I could use an EventAggregator to send a message from the TreeMenuViewModel to a `ContentViewModel' that would then set its current ContentView based on the message args- but surely that breaks MVVM, in the sense that a ViewModel shouldn't know about UI constructs like a View?
Am I missing something simple here?
How does a ViewModel layer drive the View selection?
I would create a ShellViewModel which had:
ObservableCollection<ViewModelBase> AvailablePages
int SelectedPageIndex
ViewModelBase CurrentPage, which returns AvailablePages[SelectedPageIndex]
Your ShellView can be anything you want. If you want to display your AvailablePages in a TreeView, then go ahead. Just remember to bind SelectedIndex to `SelectedPageIndex
In your case, I would create a DockPanel with a TreeView on the Left bound to AvailablePages, and a ContentControl on the right with ContentControl.Content bound to CurrentPage
Edit
Here's an example
<DockPanel>
<TreeView DockPanel.Dock="Right"
ItemsSource="{Binding AvailablePages}"
SelectedItem="{Binding SelectedPageIndex}">
...
</TreeView>
<ContentControl Content="{Binding CurrentPage}" />
</DockPanel>
Then use DataTemplates to define how the ContentControl containing CurrentPage will look
<Window.Resources>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:HomePageViewModel}" />
<local:HomePageView />
</DataTemplate>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:CustomerViewModel}" />
<local:CustomerView />
</DataTemplate>
</Window.Resources>
Ok I give it a shot
in TreeMenuViewModel:
public string PropSelectedItem
{
get;
set;
}
in TreeMenuView:
<TreeView Context="{Binding TreeMenuViewModel}" Content="{Binding PropSelectedItem, Mode=OneWayToSource}"/>
in ContentViewModel:
public ViewModelBase PropSelectedItem
{
get
{
switch(TreeMenuViewModelStatic.PropSelectedItem)
{
case "Booo": return typeof(View1);
case "Foo": return typeof(View2);
}
}
private set;
}
in ContentView:
<ContentControl Context="{Binding TreeMenuViewModel}" Content="{Binding PropSelectedItem, Mode=OneWay}"/>
and you need a value convertor here

WPF View-ModelView Binding Need Help Please

I have been playing around and looking around on how to Bind a modelview to a view, but i cant seem to work it out.
I have a view called Search and I want to bind it to SearchModelView.
View has one button and one textbox and looks:
<Grid HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" >
<ComboBox Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="12,40,0,0" Name="comboBox1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="174" />
<Label Content="Client:" Height="28" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="0,12,0,0" Name="label1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="71" />
<Label Content="Client Reference:" Height="28" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="0,69,0,0" Name="label2" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="117" />
<TextBox
x:Name="clientRefTxt"
Text="{Binding Path=ClientRef, ValidatesOnDataErrors=True, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}"
Height="23"
HorizontalAlignment="Left"
Margin="12,103,0,0"
VerticalAlignment="Top"
Width="174" />
<Button
Content="Search Debtors"
Height="23"
HorizontalAlignment="Left"
Margin="12,140,0,0"
Name="button1"
VerticalAlignment="Top"
Width="89"
Command="{Binding Path=SearchCommand}"/>
</Grid>
And I want it to bind to SearchViewModel:
namespace Master.ViewModel
{
public class SearchViewModel:WorkspaceViewModel
{
RelayCommand _searchCommand;
readonly Search _search;
#region Search Properties
public string ClientRef
{
get { MessageBox.Show("GET CLIENTREF"); return _search.ClientRef; }
set
{
MessageBox.Show("SET CLIENTREF");
if (value == _search.ClientRef)
return;
_search.ClientRef = value;
base.OnPropertyChanged("ClientRef");
}
}
#endregion
public ICommand SearchCommand
{
get
{
MessageBox.Show("SEARCHCOMMAND");
if (_searchCommand == null)
{
_searchCommand = new RelayCommand(
param=> this.Search(),
param=> this.CanSearch
);
}
return _searchCommand;
}
}
public void Search()
{
MessageBox.Show("SEARCHING");
}
bool CanSearch
{
get { return true; }
}
}
}
I removed all the assemblies at the top but assume that they are all there. Also note that SearchViewModel is in a separate dll, not in the exe with the View.
Any help would be great or at least a pointer in the write direction, I have already read the msdn article on MVVM and that didnt help...I kinda need a better rundown on binding those too pieces.
Thanks in Advance.
P.S.
Some more details:
SearchViewModel belongs to Master.ViewModel
SearchView is part of GUI.View
I have and idea how the binded objects work, im not to sure on how to bind the view to the viewmodel
Is your View a Grid? I've only used UserControl or Window types as Views, but you may have success using a Grid.
Regardless, this is the cleanest way to instantiate the ViewModel with a UserControl View. Just replace the UserControl tags with Grid tags if you're using a Grid.
<UserControl ...(blah blah)
xmlns:viewmodel="clr-namespace:Master.ViewModel">
<UserControl.DataContext>
<viewmodel:SearchViewModel/>
</UserControl.DataContext>
I believe keeping out of the View's code unless necessary is the preferred pattern for MVVM - let the XAML wire things up for you when possible.
You need to set the view's DataContext to an instance of the view model. There are a variety of ways of doing this, including frameworks that wire it up automagically, but the easiest way to get started is to do it in the constructor of the view:
partial class Search : Window
{
public Search()
{
InitializeComponent(); // provided by Visual Studio
DataContext = new SearchViewModel(); // all-important!
}
}
Obviously you may need to provide other information to initialise the SearchViewModel but hopefully this is enough to get you on the right track.
Your will need to bootstrap your application like #itowlson suggests.
But if you have more than one ViewModel you should allow WPF to do it for you. The basic way to do this (which is easy to maintain until you start having more than a dozen views) is to create a DataTemplate to tie the View with your ModelView(which most people call ViewModel).
So the xaml you provided is probably in a UserControl(at least it should be) so you need to do several things
First create a ResourceDictionary
(fast way is to right-click your project and click Add -> Resource Dictionary
In that file(let's name it Resources.xaml) put this :
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type vm:SearchViewModel}">
<vw:SearchView>
</DataTemplate>
The above is assuming you put the namespaces vw and vm for View and ViewModel namespaces respectively
Go to your App.xaml and put this:
<Application.Resources>
<ResourceDictionary Source="Resources.xaml"/>
</Application.Resources>
The above will tell WPF that whenever it encounters an object of type SearchViewModel to:
Instantiate a SearchView object
Set it's DataContext to the SearchViewModel object
HTH

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