Caliburn Micro Communication between ViewModels - viewmodel

Question

hopefully you can help me. First of all, let me explain what my problem is.
I have two ViewModels. The first one has e.g. stored information in several textboxes.
For example
private static string _tbxCfgLogfile;
public string TbxCfgLogfile
{
get { return _tbxCfgLogfile; }
set
{
_tbxCfgLogfile = value;
NotifyOfPropertyChange(() => TbxCfgLogfile);
}
}
The other ViewModel has a Button where i want to save this data from the textboxes.
It does look like this
public bool CanBtnCfgSave
{
get
{
return (new PageConfigGeneralViewModel().TbxCfgLogfile.Length > 0 [...]);
}
}
public void BtnCfgSave()
{
new Functions.Config().SaveConfig();
}
How can i let "CanBtnCfgSave" know that the condition is met or not?
My first try was
private static string _tbxCfgLogfile;
public string TbxCfgLogfile
{
get { return _tbxCfgLogfile; }
set
{
_tbxCfgLogfile = value;
NotifyOfPropertyChange(() => TbxCfgLogfile);
NotifyOfPropertyChange(() => new ViewModels.OtherViewModel.CanBtnCfgSave);
}
}
It does not work. When i do remember right, i can get the data from each ViewModel, but i cannot set nor Notify them without any effort. Is that right? Do i have to use an "Event Aggregator" to accomplish my goal or is there an alternative easier way?

Answer 1

Not sure what you are doing in your viewmodels - why are you instantiating viewmodels in property accessors?
What is this line doing?
return (new PageConfigGeneralViewModel().TbxCfgLogfile.Length > 0 [...]);
I can't be sure from your setup as you haven't mentioned much about the architecture, but sincce you should have an instance of each viewmodel, there must be something conducting/managing the two (or one managing the other)
If you have one managing the other and you are implementing this via concrete references, you can just pick up the fields from the other viewmodel by accessing the properties directly, and hooking the PropertyChanged event of the child to notify the parent
class ParentViewModel : PropertyChangedBase
{
ChildViewModel childVM;
public ParentViewModel()
{
// Create child VM and hook up event...
childVM = new ChildViewModel();
childVM.PropertyChanged = ChildViewModel_PropertyChanged;
}
void ChildViewModel_PropertyChanged(object sender, System.ComponentModel.PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
// When any properties on the child VM change, update CanSave
NotifyOfPropertyChange(() => CanSave);
}
// Look at properties on the child VM
public bool CanSave { get { return childVM.SomeProperty != string.Empty; } }
public void Save() { // do stuff }
}
class ChildViewModel : PropertyChangedBase
{
private static string _someProperty;
public string SomeProperty
{
get { return _someProperty; }
set
{
_someProperty = value;
NotifyOfPropertyChange(() => SomeProperty);
}
}
}
Of course this is a very direct way to do it - you could just create a binding to CanSave on the child VM if that works, saving the need to create the CanSave property on the parent