WPF How to design a multi-window Application?

Question

Hi, im looking for some tips and hints how i can build up my Application in a good way.

So here are some informations: I have at the moment the Mainwindow designed with a grid which holds 4 frames. its looking like this.

At the top is a menu which let you select the different Pages. I have for the main area about 8 pages for e.g. a settings page and 4 content pages. The Sidebar displays some additional informations which can be choosen by the user and the bottom shows only a page when 1 of the content pages are opened. So my content pages have ViewModels behind to fill them and im trying to use commands in the near future when im understand all features of them ;). So im trying to use the MVVM way, but im very new at this.

I don't really need a navigation menu like it is given from navigation windows.

So is it the best way for an application like that to use Frames or are there any better solutions?

Answer 1

Frames support the built-in navigation infrastructure of WPF so they're a good choice if you plan to use that. It does have some problems (at least some people think so, including me) but for simple/small applications it will do just fine. Of course they'll also work if you want to roll your own light-weight navigation system, like I usually do. I generally navigate by sending instances of ViewModels around and setting them as the contents of windows or content controls, and letting DataTemplates 'dress' them up as they are defined in the views. For larger projects I'd always recommend one of the awesome frameworks which include navigation systems like Prism or Magellan.

Basically it all depends on your requirements; there are a lot of ways to get it right. It's good that you're trying to use MVVM, try to stick with that and it will generally automatically guide you in a good direction.

I'd suggest using a docking library like AvalonDock to spice your application up a bit... however I have a bitter experience with it as it's not MVVM-friendly. I recently spent the better part of a week wrestling with it to make it usable enough in a MVVM scenario and I'm not sure it can ever be done. There may be other libraries that handle things better, but (full-featured, like in Visual Studio) docking is a complicated matter so maybe don't go there. Sorry, I probably felt the need to vent after the AvalonDock frustrations.