Working on a MVVM “light” toolkit

As some of you now, I have been spending most of my free time (which is not much these days once I am done with the amazing projects I am working on at IdentityMine, and the time spent with the family) working on a very simple, very light MVVM toolkit.

This toolkit will encompass

  • A DLL with classes that make MVVM applications easier to create and “wire”.
    • A “base” ViewModel class that contains utility methods that ViewModels typically need.
    • A command class that can be used in WPF and Silverlight, to loosely wire your controls to methods in the ViewModel.
    • A messenging system to let ViewModels and other classes communicate in an uncoupled manner.
  • A project template to create a new MVVM application in Visual Studio.
  • Some snippets to easily extend existing MVVM applications (for example with new properties).
  • Some sample applications.

I have already most of it ready, and am working on the sample apps, which is a great way to identify things that are missing from the toolkit. I already learned a lot from working on this, as well as the many discussions around this with my peers in the community.

More blog posts will follow around this topic. Stay tuned!

Print | posted on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 9:41 AM

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# re: Working on a MVVM “light” toolkit

left by Josh Santangelo at 5/27/2009 11:07 AM Gravatar
I'll be keeping an eye out. I've been using a C# port of the Adobe Cairngorm framework for my MVC needs so far (I find Prism to be a bit much for smallish, single-developer scenarios), and it's worked pretty well, but new perspectives are always welcome.

# re: Working on a MVVM “light” toolkit

left by shaggygi at 5/27/2009 3:33 PM Gravatar
How does your MVVM template and the WPF Toolkit MVVM template compare/differ?

# re: Working on a MVVM “light” toolkit

left by Daniel Vaughan at 5/30/2009 1:20 AM Gravatar
I’m really keen to see your approach Laurent. I know you’re not keen on letting the viewmodel know about the view. Looking forward to this.

Cheers,
Daniel

# re: Working on a MVVM “light” toolkit

left by Laurent at 6/1/2009 12:33 PM Gravatar
The team that's working on the WPF toolkit MVVM solution knows my code, so I expect that there will be similar parts at least. My proposed solution will be as lean as possible, and allow users to use it in various situations by extending it. This is a YAGNI approach oriented heavily at people who, like me, use Blend a lot for WPF/Silverlight development. Also, my toolkit will work in Silverlight and WPF with the same code.

In short, it will answer to my specific set of requirements, which I believe can also help other people who use a similar way of working than I do.

Does that make sense?
Laurent
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