Caliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and Silverlight

Created Issue: More Message.Attach

EisenbergEffect — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:38:58 GMT

Add several more attached properties for Message.Attach, such as Message.Attach2nd, Message.Attach3rd and Message.Attach4th so that developers do not have to switch to the long syntax just to declare multiple actions.

Created Feature: Alternative IEnumerable Execution

EisenbergEffect — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:37:14 GMT

Add a mechanism to execute IEnumerable<IResult> from within a presenter at any point. Make it overridable so that it can be tested without the presence of a UI.

Commented Issue: Requested small feature for MultiPresenterManager (or IPresenterManager / IPresenterHost)

Sevenate — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:50:57 GMT

As far as I can see the MultiPresenterManager is able to:

1) add new presenter always in the end of internal collection (with the help of Open() or Add() methods) and
2) after removing of the CurrentPresenter (with the help of Shutdown() or ShutdownCurrent() methods) it always try to set new CurrentPresenter to the _previous_ neighbor of the just removed presenter from the internal collection:

int index = _presenters.IndexOf(_currentPresenter) - 1; // line 197 in caliburn-25716\src\Caliburn.PresentationFramework\ApplicationModel\MultiPresenterManager.cs

--------------

It would be very handy if MultiPresenterManager also be able to (ordered by necessity):

1) Insert child presenter at specified position (by index). I guess this could be simply achieved with overloaded Open() with additional "int index" parameter and also Insert() method similar to Add();
2) Move presenters in internal collection to the new position (by index). A new method MoveChild(IPresenter presenter, int index) or so I guess.
3) Also be able to try set CurrentPresenter to the _next_ neighbor of the just removed presenter from the internal collection. Also this could be achieved with overloaded ShutdownCurrent() or something with bool param.

The example where such functionality could be useful: in official LOB ContactManager sample, where you want to manage order of opened contacts for edit (the horizontal ListBox on top).

I know that after RC was out all features are postponed to next version, but is there any chance that such functionality will be found useful and relatively ease to implement before RTM 1.0?
Comments: ** Comment from web user: Sevenate **

Great, thanks!

I'm also thinking about which else stuff from BindableCollection<IPresenter> _presenters could be helpful to put out from MultiPresenterManager:

void Clear();
bool Contains(IPresenter item);
int IndexOf(IPresenter value);
int Count { get; }
IPresenter this[int index] { set; get; }
void RemoveAt(int index)

...not sure what else...

What do you think (when you have time, of cause)?

Commented Issue: Requested small feature for MultiPresenterManager (or IPresenterManager / IPresenterHost)

EisenbergEffect — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:00:29 GMT

I think these are reasonable ideas. I will look into it. I have a few other things on my plate, so it may not get worked on until next week.

Commented Issue: Requested small feature for MultiPresenterManager (or IPresenterManager / IPresenterHost)

Sevenate — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:43:50 GMT

The reason why I'm asking is because I have already implemented similar to PropertyChangedBase/Presenter/MultiPresenterManager functionality with already implemented requested features like insert/move/"select_after", but really want to switch to the Caliburn.PresentationFramework.ApplicationModel.

Created Issue: Requested small feature for MultiPresenterManager (or IPresenterManager / IPresenterHost)

Sevenate — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:24:43 GMT

New Post: How to design a suggest box in a Caliburn application?

marcoamendola — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:50:51 GMT

This thread is not strictly about Caliburn usage, yet I think it could be useful to share experiences in building real world scenarios with it.

I have to implement a classical suggest box (similar to Facebook search box, to be clear). I will have plenty instances of this box in many data forms. Each box instance is given a "topic" so that it will suggest only items concerning that topic. The item selected in the suggest dropdown list has to be used to set a model property.

Until now I'm evaluating two alternatives:

Application Model approach:
Define a presenter managing the suggestion (with appropriate service call) and the selection.
Parent form presenter could collect and mantain multiple intances of this "SuggestionPresenter".
Each of them needs to be set up with a proper topic and a reference to model the property that should receive the selected suggestion value (so that, when an item is chosen, the appropriate property could be set).

Pros: Better testable; ViewModel Driven UI approach
Cons: Data model properties handled outside standard WPF binding mechanism; FormPresenter has to know which Model properties should be edited with suggestion (but it is UI related concern)
Custom UserControl approach:
Create a custom UserControl exposing a Topic dependency property to set the topic via XAML and a SelectedItem dependency property allowing to bind directly to the Model.

Pros: The choice of the control used to edit Model properties is under view responsibility only.
Cons: Less testable; it seems to me an old-style WinForm solution

I would really like to hear your thoughts or suggestions.
Thanks in advance for your answers.
Marco

Closed Feature: Add View.Strategy Attached Property

EisenbergEffect — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:45:17 GMT

Add View.Strategy Attached Property. This would basically add DataTemplateSelectors to Silverlight and improve them for WPF.
Comments:

Fixed as of 25716.

Source code checked in, #25716

EisenbergEffect — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:44:11 GMT

Cloases ticket #3436. This adds a View.Strategy attached property that allows specifying instances of IViewStrategy on a per-element basis. This opens up some new possibilities for Silverlight, similar to DataTemplateSelectors.

Source code checked in, #25715

EisenbergEffect — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:48:37 GMT

Made an alteration to the Silverlight version of DefaultViewStrategy. You cannot remove and re-add controls from the hierarchy in certain scenarios. Therefore, I have altered the DefaultViewStrategy so that it does not check the ViewMetadata for existing views, it just recreates them. This is only for the SL version, due to a long-time unfixed bug in Silverlight.

Created Feature: Add View.Strategy Attached Property

EisenbergEffect — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:07:05 GMT

Add View.Strategy Attached Property. This would basically add DataTemplateSelectors to Silverlight and improve them for WPF.

New Post: Are You Using Caliburn?

bartreyserhove — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:32:20 GMT

Features we use all the time

Actions

MVP support: Presenter, PresenterManager, Navigator, Back/Forward support

Attributes on presenters: Views, Lifestyles, Rescues

Dialogs: definitely going to use those, but we still need to start it

What would be nice

POCO models to which you can attributes for validation

App we are building

We are building an HR application with it and are planning to go live with a first release of that in autumn. For the rest of the design we are using WCF for the service layer, NHibernate for the data access and Windsor as IOC.

Closed Issue: Caliburn Configuration Improvements

EisenbergEffect — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:37:02 GMT

Add some methods on to the base class to make defining components easier.
Comments:

Fixed as of revision 25677.

Source code checked in, #25677

EisenbergEffect — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:36:33 GMT

Closes ticket 3354. Added some helper methods for creating Singleton/PerRequest components to the CaliburnConfiguration.

Closed Feature: DefaulViewStrategy Improvements

EisenbergEffect — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:22:13 GMT

1. Allow namespace mappings.
2. Check ViewMetadata before instancing a View.
3. Cache View to Model lookups, so assembly inspection doesn't have to happen when views are requested for the same model.
Comments:

Features added as of revision 25676.

Source code checked in, #25676

EisenbergEffect — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:20:56 GMT

This adds several improvements to the DefaultViewStrategy. Details are listed in ticket #3365. A side effect of this change is that Views in ViewMetadata are now stored contextually. This means that a Presenter can be aware of multiple views and know which one is displayed, based on the context.

Commented Feature: DefaulViewStrategy Improvements

EisenbergEffect — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:12:07 GMT

Christopher's patch for some of the above features.

Closed Issue: Give to CaliburnConfiguration inheritors a protected access to Core configuration

EisenbergEffect — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:08:05 GMT

To access Core configuration, inheritors of CaliburnConfiguration can either cast themself to IConfigurationHook or save a private reference in constructor.
It will be easier to expose the reference as protected property.
A patch is attached.
Comments:

Implemented as of revision #25673.

Source code checked in, #25673

EisenbergEffect — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:07:32 GMT

Fixes #3368.

Closed Issue: CommandAttribute cannot be externally inspected to get actual name given to Command

EisenbergEffect — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:01:32 GMT

It will be useful to have a publicly accessible method to retrieve the actual name a Command is registered with (actual name is inferred if not explicitly given).
This will address scenarios in which a second-pass inspection of the CommandAttribute is needed *after* the registration pass.
A patch is attached.
Comments:

Implemented as of revision 25672.