Navigation and DI

Question

Im trying to make a standard code to use in order to implement in my xamarin.forms apps. What I want to do is to have a way to navigate between viewmodels and a wey to correctly implement dependency injection. What I'm currently doing for navigation:

await Navigation.PushAsync(new SecondPageView());

And for DI:

 var test = DependencyService.Get<ITestService>();
 WelcomeMessage = test.GetSystemWelcome();

I know that the correct way to implement Di is creating an interface and proceed from that step but the problem is that when I try, I fail trying to have a good navigation system (like register the view and the view model in a file apart).

Does anyone have a sample example that I can have a look? Or maybe some indications in order to proceed?

PD: I trying to avoid frameworks like MvvMcross things like that.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

(I will try to simplify all the code examples as much as possible).

1. First of all we need a place where we could register all our objects and optionally define their lifetime. For this matter we can use an IOC container, you can choose one yourself. In this example I will use Autofac(it is one of the fastest available). We can keep a reference to it in the App so it will be available globally (not a good idea, but needed for simplification):

public class DependencyResolver
{
    static IContainer container;

    public DependencyResolver(params Module[] modules)
    {
        var builder = new ContainerBuilder();

        if (modules != null)
            foreach (var module in modules)
                builder.RegisterModule(module);

        container = builder.Build();
    }

    public T Resolve<T>() => container.Resolve<T>();
    public object Resolve(Type type) => container.Resolve(type);
}

public partial class App : Application
{
    public DependencyResolver DependencyResolver { get; }

    // Pass here platform specific dependencies
    public App(Module platformIocModule)
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        DependencyResolver = new DependencyResolver(platformIocModule, new IocModule());
        MainPage = new WelcomeView();
    }

    /* The rest of the code ... */
}

2.We will need an object responsible for retrieving a Page (View) for a specific ViewModel and vice versa. The second case might be useful in case of setting the root/main page of the app. For that we should agree on a simple convention that all the ViewModels should be in ViewModels directory and Pages(Views) should be in the Views directory. In other words ViewModels should live in [MyApp].ViewModels namespace and Pages(Views) in [MyApp].Views namespace. In addition to that we should agree that WelcomeView(Page) should have a WelcomeViewModel and etc. Here is a code example of a mapper:

public class TypeMapperService
{
    public Type MapViewModelToView(Type viewModelType)
    {
        var viewName = viewModelType.FullName.Replace("Model", string.Empty);
        var viewAssemblyName = GetTypeAssemblyName(viewModelType);
        var viewTypeName = GenerateTypeName("{0}, {1}", viewName, viewAssemblyName);
        return Type.GetType(viewTypeName);
    }

    public Type MapViewToViewModel(Type viewType)
    {
        var viewModelName = viewType.FullName.Replace(".Views.", ".ViewModels.");
        var viewModelAssemblyName = GetTypeAssemblyName(viewType);
        var viewTypeModelName = GenerateTypeName("{0}Model, {1}", viewModelName, viewModelAssemblyName);
        return Type.GetType(viewTypeModelName);
    }

    string GetTypeAssemblyName(Type type) => type.GetTypeInfo().Assembly.FullName;
    string GenerateTypeName(string format, string typeName, string assemblyName) =>
        string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, format, typeName, assemblyName);
}

3.For the case of setting a root page we will need sort of ViewModelLocator that will set the BindingContext automatically:

public static class ViewModelLocator
{
    public static readonly BindableProperty AutoWireViewModelProperty =
        BindableProperty.CreateAttached("AutoWireViewModel", typeof(bool), typeof(ViewModelLocator), default(bool), propertyChanged: OnAutoWireViewModelChanged);

    public static bool GetAutoWireViewModel(BindableObject bindable) =>
        (bool)bindable.GetValue(AutoWireViewModelProperty);

    public static void SetAutoWireViewModel(BindableObject bindable, bool value) =>
        bindable.SetValue(AutoWireViewModelProperty, value);

    static ITypeMapperService mapper = (Application.Current as App).DependencyResolver.Resolve<ITypeMapperService>();

    static void OnAutoWireViewModelChanged(BindableObject bindable, object oldValue, object newValue)
    {
        var view = bindable as Element;
        var viewType = view.GetType();
        var viewModelType = mapper.MapViewToViewModel(viewType);
        var viewModel =  (Application.Current as App).DependencyResolver.Resolve(viewModelType);
        view.BindingContext = viewModel;
    }
}

// Usage example
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ContentPage
    xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
    xmlns:viewmodels="clr-namespace:MyApp.ViewModel"
    viewmodels:ViewModelLocator.AutoWireViewModel="true"
    x:Class="MyApp.Views.MyPage">
</ContentPage>

4.Finally we will need a NavigationService that will support ViewModel First Navigation approach:

public class NavigationService
{
    TypeMapperService mapperService { get; }

    public NavigationService(TypeMapperService mapperService)
    {
        this.mapperService = mapperService;
    }

    protected Page CreatePage(Type viewModelType)
    {
        Type pageType = mapperService.MapViewModelToView(viewModelType);
        if (pageType == null)
        {
            throw new Exception($"Cannot locate page type for {viewModelType}");
        }

        return Activator.CreateInstance(pageType) as Page;
    }

    protected Page GetCurrentPage()
    {
        var mainPage = Application.Current.MainPage;

        if (mainPage is MasterDetailPage)
        {
            return ((MasterDetailPage)mainPage).Detail;
        }

        // TabbedPage : MultiPage<Page>
        // CarouselPage : MultiPage<ContentPage>
        if (mainPage is TabbedPage || mainPage is CarouselPage)
        {
            return ((MultiPage<Page>)mainPage).CurrentPage;
        }

        return mainPage;
    }

    public Task PushAsync(Page page, bool animated = true)
    {
        var navigationPage = Application.Current.MainPage as NavigationPage;
        return navigationPage.PushAsync(page, animated);
    }

    public Task PopAsync(bool animated = true)
    {
        var mainPage = Application.Current.MainPage as NavigationPage;
        return mainPage.Navigation.PopAsync(animated);
    }

    public Task PushModalAsync<TViewModel>(object parameter = null, bool animated = true) where TViewModel : BaseViewModel =>
        InternalPushModalAsync(typeof(TViewModel), animated, parameter);

    public Task PopModalAsync(bool animated = true)
    {
        var mainPage = GetCurrentPage();
        if (mainPage != null)
            return mainPage.Navigation.PopModalAsync(animated);

        throw new Exception("Current page is null.");
    }

    async Task InternalPushModalAsync(Type viewModelType, bool animated, object parameter)
    {
        var page = CreatePage(viewModelType);
        var currentNavigationPage = GetCurrentPage();

        if (currentNavigationPage != null)
        {
            await currentNavigationPage.Navigation.PushModalAsync(page, animated);
        }
        else
        {
            throw new Exception("Current page is null.");
        }

        await (page.BindingContext as BaseViewModel).InitializeAsync(parameter);
    }
}

As you may see there is a BaseViewModel - abstract base class for all the ViewModels where you can define methods like InitializeAsync that will get executed right after the navigation. And here is an example of navigation:

public class WelcomeViewModel : BaseViewModel
{
    public ICommand NewGameCmd { get; }
    public ICommand TopScoreCmd { get; }
    public ICommand AboutCmd { get; }

    public WelcomeViewModel(INavigationService navigation) : base(navigation)
    {
        NewGameCmd = new Command(async () => await Navigation.PushModalAsync<GameViewModel>());
        TopScoreCmd = new Command(async () => await navigation.PushModalAsync<TopScoreViewModel>());
        AboutCmd = new Command(async () => await navigation.PushModalAsync<AboutViewModel>());
    }
}

As you understand this approach is more complicated, harder to debug and might be confusing. However there are many advantages plus you actually don't have to implement it yourself since most of the MVVM frameworks support it out of the box. The code example that is demonstrated here is available on github.

There are plenty of good articles about ViewModel First Navigation approach and there is a free Enterprise Application Patterns using Xamarin.Forms eBook which is explaining this and many other interesting topics in detail.