One ViewModel, multiple views

Question

I am having a hard time getting multiple views to work against 1 viewmodel. I have read Naming Convention for Multi-View Support without getting much out of it, and have tried countless things in the process.

Just to take a simple example. Say I have a ViewModel for People residing in ShellViewModel, which basically contains a list of Person-objects. I want to display them in two different ways in my application.

What is the correct way to name the Views in this case, and how do I display both views in ShellView?

Click

Not sure why the close votes and downvote. Multiple views over a single VM in CM is common. – Protohistory

Turn debugging on, it will tell you when it can't find a view and where it looked. Check out View.Context and checkout the HelloScreens example it is an example of multiple views over a single VM. – Protohistory

Answer 1

Anders is correct, there are a number of default conventions for Caliburn.Micro, one of them will locate and display <RootNS>.Views.[<ChildNS>].<ViewTypeName> for <RootNS>.ViewModels.[<ChildNS>].<ViewModelTypeName>.

In your case, for a single View (assuming the classes reside in namespaces derived from the folders):

<RootNS>.Views.PeopleView would by located and displayed for <RootNS>.ViewModels.PeopleViewModel.

For multiple views over the same viewmodel, the convention is that views of format <EntityName>.<Context> are displayed for viewmodels of format <EntityName>[<ViewSuffix>]ViewModel:

From your example, you could create a new folder named People, and inside it, create your views named Grid and List.

Your namespaces become <RootNS>.Views.People.Grid and <RootNS>.Views.People.List and, should then be located and displayed for <RootNS>.ViewModels.PeopleViewModel.

You typically then display the Views in something like a ContentControl, choosing the View you want to display by setting the cal:View.Context property. You'll either hard code the name, if the context isn't going to change in that particular control, or bind to a property which describes what state the ViewModel should be displayed as.

e.g.

<ContentControl cal:View.Model="{Binding Path=ActiveItem}" 
                cal:View.Context="List" />

See the Multiple Views over the Same ViewModel section.

Superpower

Glad there was something useful in there :D – Superpower

Answer 2

As far as I can tell from the documentation you are referring to, you should not use View in your view name. Name your view classes People.Grid and People.List instead.

Wells

But, this blog link shows step 2, which specifcally says include ViewModel in the viewmodel's name – Kat