MVVM using Page Navigation On Windows Mobile 7

Question

The Navigation framework in Windows Mobile 7 is a cut down version of what is in Silverlight. You can only navigate to a Uri and not pass in a view. Since the NavigationService is tied to the View, how do people get this to fit into MVVM. For example:

public class ViewModel : IViewModel
{
    private IUnityContainer container;
    private IView view;

    public ViewModel(IUnityContainer container, IView view)
    {
        this.container = container;
        this.view = view;
    }

    public ICommand GoToNextPageCommand { get { ... } }

    public IView { get { return this.view; } }

    public void GoToNextPage()
    {
        // What do I put here.
    }
}

public class View : PhoneApplicationPage, IView
{
    ...

    public void SetModel(IViewModel model) { ... }
}

I am using the Unity IOC container. I have to resolve my view model first and then use the View property to get hold of the view and then show it. However using the NavigationService, I have to pass in a view Uri. There is no way for me to create the view model first. Is there a way to get around this.

Answer 1

Instead of passing the view through the constructor. You could construct the view first via the NavigationService and pass it into the view-model. Like so:

public class ViewModel : IViewModel
{
    private IUnityContainer container;
    private IView view;

    public ViewModel(IUnityContainer container)
    {
        this.container = container;
    }

    public ICommand GoToNextPageCommand { get { ... } }

    public IView 
    { 
        get { return this.view; } 
        set { this.view = value; this.view.SetModel(this); }
    }

    public void GoToNextPage()
    {
        // What do I put here.
    }
}

PhoneApplicationFrame frame = Application.Current.RootVisual;
bool success = frame.Navigate(new Uri("View Uri"));

if (success)
{
    // I'm not sure if the frame's Content property will give you the current view.
    IView view = (IView)frame.Content;
    IViewModel viewModel = this.unityContainer.Resolve<IViewModel>();
    viewModel.View = view;
}

Answer 2

If you are using Mvvm Light you could try:

Windows Phone 7 — Navigation between pages using MVVM Light Messaging

(See similar post: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2741820/silverlight-navigation-using-mvvm-lightoobemef)