WPF MVVM Toolkit 0.1 Released!

  • Article

Model-View separation is not a novel idea in the software industry. It has been around for at least 30 years. Recently, however, MV separation is seeing a lot of renewed interest, powered both by the growing complexity of software and by the need to provide different UI experiences, reusing the same underlying business logic.

WPF provides a lot of native functionality (commanding, databinding, etc.), enabling developers to build applications with proper model-view separation. So far, however, we have not provided simple guidance on how to utilize these features to build properly factored applications with model-view separation.

***

I am very happy to announce that on Friday we released the first preliminary version of the WPF Model-View-ViewModel Toolkit (MVVM is WPF’s equivalent of the classic MVC design pattern). The toolkit is available for download on the “WPF Futures” codeplex site.

The toolkit consists of:

  • A Visual Studio template, allowing you to quickly create WPF Model-View-ViewModel Applications
  • Documentation
    • A general introduction to the MVVM design pattern
    • A detailed walk-through, demonstrating how to create a simple MVVM application, starting from the skeleton generated by the template
  • A complete MVVM application example – a WPF messenger application.

Big kudos to Patrick Danino – an engineer on our team – who worked on the toolkit from inception to its successful first preliminary release.

***

This first preliminary version of the toolkit is fairly simple and clearly not aimed at MVVM experts. We have adopted an evolutionary approach of delivery, so we invite everybody out there – from folks looking to pick up MVVM for their next project to MVVM experts – to collaborate with us on the toolkit, by sharing both real-world experiences as well as first-time-exposure feedback.

We will use this feedback to drive improvements in the toolkit, in the WPF platform and in the relevant authoring tools (Visual Studio, Expression Blend, etc).

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 03, 2009
    PingBack from http://microsoft-sharepoint.simplynetdev.com/wpf-mvvm-toolkit-01-released/

  • Anonymous
    May 03, 2009
    PingBack from http://www.anith.com/?p=34560

  • Anonymous
    May 03, 2009
    Will this toolkit work with the new SketchFlow when released?

  • Anonymous
    May 04, 2009
    PingBack from http://uminana.blogsite.org/archives/211

  • Anonymous
    May 04, 2009
    @shaggygi: Projects created with the toolkit should and will work in VS and Blend. It is still unclear though whether we would be able to deliver a specific MVVM authoring experience integrated in these tools for their next version.

  • Anonymous
    June 06, 2009
    Dear Ivo, The link http://wpf.codeplex.com/WorkItem/View.aspx?WorkItemId=10099 and its associated project demonstrates some incompatibilities between (1) the WPF ItemsControl (in this case, the DataGrid) SelectedItems property and (2) a bound 'IsSelected' property of a business object. The project uses a very simplified MVVM approach to make the point. Thank you, Julie.

  • Anonymous
    February 14, 2010
    Hi,I have installed the template.But I can't find the template when I want to create a new project.My visual studio's version is 2008 sp1.

  • Anonymous
    February 15, 2010
    Hi Charley- I'd be glad to help with the MVVM toolkit template. What edition of VS 2008 do you have (VSTS,Express,Pro)? What language is your VS in? There is a known issue with non-english languages. Thanks!