mvvmlight - what's the "proper way" of picking up url parameters for a view model - windows-phone-7

I'm just switching a project across to mvvmlight and trying to do things "the right way"
I've got a simple app with a listbox
When an item is selected in the listbox, then I've hooked up a RelayCommand
This RelayCommand causes a call on an INavigationService (http://geekswithblogs.net/lbugnion/archive/2011/01/06/navigation-in-a-wp7-application-with-mvvm-light.aspx) which navigates to a url like "/DetailPage.xaml?DetailId=12"
The DetailPage.xaml is then loaded and ... this is where I'm a bit unsure...
how should the DetailPage get hooked up to a DetailView with DetailId of 12?
should I do this in Xaml somehow using a property on the ViewLocator?
should I do this in the NavigatedTo method?
Please feel free to point me to a full sample - sure this has been done a (hundred) thousand times before, but all the blogs and tutorials seem to be skipping this last trivial detail (focussing instead on the messaging and on the ioc on on the navigationservice)
Thanks!

The only place you can retrieve the URL parameter is in the view. So since your view is likely depending on it, you should fetch it in the OnNavigatedTo method.
Then, you should pass it along to your viewmodel, either using messaging (to expensive if you ask me), or by referring to your datacontext (which is the viewmodel I presume), and execeuting a method on that.
private AddTilePageViewModel ViewModel
{
get
{
return DataContext as AddTilePageViewModel;
}
}
protected override void OnNavigatedTo(NavigationEventArgs e)
{
var postalCode = NavigationContext.TryGetKey("PostalCode");
var country = NavigationContext.TryGetStringKey("Country");
if (postalCode.HasValue && string.IsNullOrEmpty(country) == false)
{
ViewModel.LoadCity(postalCode.Value, country);
}
base.OnNavigatedTo(e);
}
I'm using some special extensions for the NavigationContext to make it easier.
namespace System.Windows.Navigation
{
public static class NavigationExtensions
{
public static int? TryGetKey(this NavigationContext source, string key)
{
if (source.QueryString.ContainsKey(key))
{
string value = source.QueryString[key];
int result = 0;
if (int.TryParse(value, out result))
{
return result;
}
}
return null;
}
public static string TryGetStringKey(this NavigationContext source, string key)
{
if (source.QueryString.ContainsKey(key))
{
return source.QueryString[key];
}
return null;
}
}
}

Create a new WindowsPhoneDataBound application, it has an example of how to handle navigation between views. Basically you handle the navigation part in your view, then set the view's DataContext accord to the query string. I think it plays nicely with the MVVM pattern since your ViewModels don't have to know anything about navigation (which IMO should be handled at the UI level).

Related

Xamarin Native, Binding actions to listview items

I would like to ask about bindings. What is the best approach to bind some actions in listview items in ios and android using xamarin in mvvm world. As I understand, we have few approaches.
1.
For every list item we have some Model, and to this model we have to add some Commands.
For example:
public class ItemModel
{
public string MyName { get; set; }
public ICommand RemoveCommand { get; set; }
}
Where in ViewModel we have SomeInitMethod
public class ViewModel
{
public ObservableCollection<ItemModel> Items {get;set;}
public async Task SomeInitMethod
{
Items = new ObservableCollection(await _myApiService.FetchItemsAsync());
foreach(var item in Items)
{
item.Command = new RelayCommand(RemoveItem);
}
}
public void RemoveItem(ItemModel item)
{
Items.Remove(item);
}
}
But I see a drawback in SomeInitMethod where we should set RemoveCommand. What if we should to set 2 or even more commands than we duplicate code in ListItemView(somehow we need to bind all these commands)?
Next approach is somehow handle events of remove/toggle buttons and others in Listview and then delegate this commands directly to ViewModel.
Example:
ContactsListView.ItemRemoveClicked += (ItemModel model) => ViewModel.RemoveItem
Advantages is: we no longer need to handle commands in ViewModel
Drawback is: we need every time to write custom ListView and support event handling in code-behind.
The last approach is to send ViewModel to ListItem to set Commands.
Example
somewhere we have method CreateListViewItem on the view, let's say on iOS.
private void InitTableView() {
TableView.RegisterNibForCellReuse(ItemViewCell.Nib, ItemViewCell.Key);
var source = new ObservableTableViewSource <ItemModel>
{
DataSource = ViewModel.Items,
BindCellDelegate = (cell, viewModel, index) =>
{
if (cell is ItemModel memberCell)
{
memberCell.BindViewModel(viewModel);
memberCell.RemoveItem = (item) => ViewModel.RemoveItem;
}
}
};
TableView.Source = source;
}
Advantages: we no longer need to have Commands in Model, and we don't need to setup this Commands in ViewModel.
Possibly, drawback is that we somehow need to have ViewModel reference.
In WPF or UWP you have DataContext, you can binding directly to ViewModel.
Which approach you use, maybe I miss something, and it would be perfect if you provide some examples or thoughts.
Thanks.

Prism - moving data between viewmodels

I'm struggling to find the best implementation.
I'm using Prism and I have a View (ParentView), which has a small region within it. Depending on the item in a ddl, another smaller view (ChildView) gets injected into the region of the ParentView.
The ChildView will just have some properties which I would like to access from the ParentView.
So I realize I can use a Publish/Subscribe method to move data between viewmodels, but the issue is I have nothing to hang the Publish on. The view is made up of TextBoxes and no event triggers. The ChildView can be vastly different based on the selection of the ddl. I like the clean separation of each ChildView being it's own view injected inside the ParentView.
What is the best way to achieve this?
One solution can be to implement the interface INavigationAware in your viewmodels. After that you can use the methods onNavigatedFrom(), onNavigatedTo() and onNavigatingTo() to register your event.
EDIT:
If you want launch the event when a field in the child is changed you can do something like this:
private string _yourField;
public string YourField
{
get { return _yourField; }
set { SetProperty(ref _yourField, value);
//Here you can launch the event
}
}
In this case when YourField change the event is launched.
I tried a few implementations, but the one that worked was creating a singleton instance of the ChildView (childviewmodel) and then gaining access to the properties through the instance. It may not be pretty, but it works.
private static ChildViewModel _instance = new ChildViewModel ();
public static ChildViewModel Instance { get { return _instance; } }
#region Properties
private ChildModel _childModel= new ChildModel ();
public ChildModel _childModel
{
get { return _instance._childModel; }
set
{
SetProperty(ref _instance._childModel, value);
}
}
private string _childProperty1;
public string ChildProperty1
{
get { return _childProperty1; }
set
{
SetProperty(ref _childProperty1, value);
ChildModel.ChildProperty1= _childProperty1;
}
}
In reality - there were many childproperties. I only listed one for demo. And then I call it in ParentView
var _instance = ChildViewModel.Instance;
var _cm = _instance.ChildModel;
_parentModel = new ParentModel
{
Property1= ParentViewProperty1,
Property2= _cm.ChildProperty1,
};
Hope that helps someone else.

Page Navigation using MVVM pattern without using existing MVVM frameworks

I am trying to implement MVVM pattern in my xamarin mobile project.
I have following files for MVVM
LoginView
LoginViewModel
BaseViewModel
Following is my LoginViewModel
public class LoginViewModel : BaseViewModel
{
private bool isLoginIndicator= false;
private string etUserName;
private string etPassword;
public LoginViewModel()
{
OnLogin = new Command(doLogin , ()=>!LoginIndicator);
MessagingCenter.Subscribe<IMessage, EventType>(this, RestApi.UI_EVENT, (sender, eventType) =>
{
LoginIndicator = false;
if (eventType.status)
{
Application.Current.MainPage.DisplayAlert(AppResources.success, "Login done", "Ok");
}
else
{
Application.Current.MainPage.DisplayAlert(AppResources.failed, eventType.errorMessage, "Ok");
}
});
}
public bool LoginIndicator
{
get { return isLoginIndicator; }
set
{
isLoginIndicator = value;
OnPropertyChanged("LoginIndicator");
OnLogin.ChangeCanExecute();
}
}
public string UserName
{
get { return etUserName; }
set
{
etUserName = value;
OnPropertyChanged("UserName");
}
}
public string Password
{
get { return etPassword; }
set
{
etPassword = value;
OnPropertyChanged("Password");
}
}
public Command OnLogin { get; }
void doLogin()
{
LoginIndicator = true;
UserRequest user = new UserRequest();
user.userName = etUserName;
user.password = etPassword;
user.companyId = "CEE";
user.appVersion = Constants.getAppVersion();
user.osVersion = Constants.getOSVersion();
user.deviceId = Constants.getDeviceModel() + " " + Constants.getDevicePlatform();
new RestApi().userLogin(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(user));
}
}
This class usually makes a webservice call when OnLogin command gets fired from Button and broadcast the Message using MessageCenter
Now i want to navigate to my MainPage which is master page once the user is logged in successfully hence i need to navigate to master page when eventType.status is true inside the Message Subscriber
but i don't know how can i properly navigate to other pages according to MVVM pattern.
i tried to search on net and i found there are ready made frameworks available like MVVMCross and MVVMLight etc. But i do not want to use those dependecies and willing to implement navigation some other way if anyone can suggest
MVVM says nothing about navigation, so basically every option will be fine.
The only thing against code like:
Application.Current.MainPage = new MyFirstPageAfterLogin();
Is that you now have a reference to a page from your ViewModel, which should not be what you want. That is why MVVM frameworks tend to implement a concept called ViewModel-to-ViewModelnavigation. With that, you can specify a ViewModel that you want to navigate to. Depending on the framework (or how they implemented it), they have you register a coupling first or use a naming convention. For instance; I like to use FreshMvvm, which does this by naming convention.
So when I want to navigate to the PageAfterLoginPage, I create a PageAfterLoginPageModel. From my ViewModel (or PageModel in Xamarin naming) I can now navigate to the PageModel, instead of making a hard reference to the page. This way, Page and PageModel are separated and I can easily swap out the View if I wanted to.
So, either use an already existing framework, or peek into their Github repo to see how they do it if you insist on doing it yourself.
With the latest tools do a File / New Project / CrossPlatform / Master-Detail. The master-detail template is all MVVM, without using any 3rd party frameworks. There are permutatations of native and forms. Great for learning and exploring.
Healy in Tampa.

What is the proper way to have a ListView show a LINQ query and update dynamically?

I'm new to Xamarin and C#, so apologies in advance for any mistakes I make.
In my app, I have a list of plants. When a plant is selected, I have a detail view of info about the plant. In the detail view, I have a button that adds or removes the plant from a shopping list.
To implement this, I have a class named MyPlant, with a field called InCart, and a method ToggleInCart that the button calls.
(note that I didn't paste in some code to simplify this question as much as possible)
public class MyPlant : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
string name;
bool inCart;
...
public bool InCart
{
set
{
if (inCart != value)
{
inCart = value;
OnPropertyChanged("InCart");
}
}
get { return inCart; }
}
public ICommand ToggleCartStatus
{
get
{
if (_toggleCartStatus == null)
{
_toggleCartStatus = new Command(() => InCart = !InCart);
}
return _toggleCartStatus;
}
I have another class called PlantList, which has a method PlantsInCart that uses LINQ to return an ObservableCollection of MyPlant where InCart is true.
public class PlantList : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
public ObservableCollection PlantsInCart
{
private set { }
get
{
ObservableCollection list = new ObservableCollection(myPlants.Where(i => i.InCart));
return list;
}
}
In my XAML, I have a ListView bound to PlantsInCart.
Everything works as I want EXCEPT when I remove the selected plant, the list doesn't update to show the plant is missing even though the data underneath it is correctly updated. If I refresh the list by going to a different page and coming back, then the list shows the right plants.
I suspect this doesn't work because the change in the InCart field isn't bubbling up high enough to that the ListView hears that it is supposed to update.
Can anybody advise me on the proper way to implement this kind of feature? In other words, how should you implement a scenario where you have a list that should update when a property of an item in the list changes?

How do I get access to the QueryString in Windows Phone 7 from a user control

I have a simple user control in Windows Phone 7 and I want to get access to the querystring collection from the user controls Constructor. I have tried many ways and cannot seem to get acess to the containing XAML's querystring collection.
Essentially I am navigating to the page and the my user control is going to access the querystring value to write the value back to the interface.
Am I missing adding an assembly or reference or something?
I am not sure you should be trying to get at the information from the page's constructor, as it won't necessairly get called every time you land on this page. A better approach is to override the OnNavigatedTo method inherited from PhoneApplicationPage. Looking a little more carefully at your question, you may be trying to do this within a control embedded in the page, in which case you need to get at the Page in order to obtain the navigation information.
Regardless, the NavigationContext property from the page has a QueryString parameter that you can use to access the information you're after.
The following example assumes I have a parameter named "Message" in the query string when navigating to this page:
public partial class MyPage : PhoneApplicationPage
{
// Constructor
public MyPage()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
protected override void OnNavigatedTo(System.Windows.Navigation.NavigationEventArgs e)
{
base.OnNavigatedTo(e);
String navigationMessage;
if (NavigationContext.QueryString.TryGetValue("Message", out navigationMessage))
{
this.textBlock1.Text = navigationMessage;
}
}
}
Sorry about that - I started to get there, and thanks for the clarification. Your best bet then is to walk up the visual tree from your control to find the Page, then you can have at the NavigationContext. In my sample below, I have a button on a custom control within the page, whose click event finds the nav context and looks for a certain navigation parameter - I couldn't tell from the question or your follow-up what would drive the control to "want" to find the content of the query string.
(Note about getting info from the ctor follows the code below)
public partial class WindowsPhoneControl1 : UserControl
{
public WindowsPhoneControl1()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private void button1_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
GetTheQueryString();
}
private void GetTheQueryString()
{
var result = "No Joy";
var page = FindRootPage(this);
if (page != null)
{
if (page.NavigationContext.QueryString.ContainsKey("Param"))
{
result = page.NavigationContext.QueryString["Param"];
}
}
queryStringText.Text = result;
}
private static PhoneApplicationPage FindRootPage(FrameworkElement item)
{
if (item != null && !(item is PhoneApplicationPage))
{
item = FindRootPage(item.Parent as FrameworkElement);
}
return item as PhoneApplicationPage;
}
}
Note that this won't work from the ctor because of how Xaml works...the Xml tag drives the ctor to be called, then properties are set as indicated, then it is added as a child/item/etc in its container. If you do need to get at the context ASAP using this "walk up the tree" technique, handle the Control's Loaded event, by which time the control does have a parent and a tree that can be walked...
public WindowsPhoneControl1()
{
InitializeComponent();
Loaded += WindowsPhoneControl1_Loaded;
}
private void WindowsPhoneControl1_Loaded(Object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
GetTheQueryString();
}
I would add a property to the UserControl subclass that would be set by the page in its OnNavigatedTo() method.

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