How to navigate through windows with MVVM Light for WPF?

wpf design-patterns mvvm mvvm-light
zero51 picture zero51 · Feb 15, 2012 · Viewed 29.9k times · Source

I've just started a new project in which the presentation layer will be done by WPF and MVVM Light by GalaSoft.

I need a lot of views and it's not clear to me how to manage navigation through windows.

First of all, the templates offered in MVVM Light for creating a new "WPF MVVM View" create a new Window that is not possible to use for navigation by frame (I mean, by putting a frame in mainView and changing the source path to navigate).

Do I simply have to change Window to Page for all the views I create using templates?

Or is there a different way to perform navigation in WPF with the MVVM Light toolkit?

Answer

Rachel picture Rachel · Feb 15, 2012

I usually use a ContentControl to display dynamic content. It's Content property is usually bound to a CurrentViewModel property in the parent ViewModel, and DataTemplates are used to tell WPF how to draw the child ViewModels.

To change views, simply change the CurrentViewModel property in the parent ViewModel

You can find an example at this article of mine

Related questions

Handling Dialogs in WPF with MVVM

In the MVVM pattern for WPF, handling dialogs is one of the more complex operations. As your view model does not know anything about the view, dialog communication can be interesting. I can expose an ICommand that when the view …

Read More
MVVM: ViewModel and Business Logic Connection

After doing a few Projects using the MVVM Pattern, Im still struggling with the Role of the ViewModel: What I did in the past: Using the Model only as a Data Container. Putting the Logic to manipulate the Data in …

Read More
In MVVM model should the model implement INotifyPropertyChanged interface?

I have clear idea about View and ViewModel in MVVM pattern. I am planning to implement MVVM pattern in my application. I'm facing an issue regarding the model. I have .xml file which is parsed and the information is displayed …

Read More