Prism 4: What’s new and what’s next

A couple of days ago, the first drop of Prism 4 was released. Keep in mind that this has many work-in-progress stuff, but the idea is that you can see where we are heading, and also give us feedback on what you want for this version of prism.

Model-View-ViewModel QuickStart

This QuickStart demonstrates how to create a basic Silverlight application using the MVVM pattern. Note that this QuickStart is independant of the Prism Library.

The following challenges are addressed in this QuickStart.

• Implementing the INotifyPropertyChanged interface
• Hierarchical view models
• Validations
• Animations

For more information about the MVVM QuickStart, see Matias Bonaventura’s post.

What’s next 

The following changes can be expected for the next drop.

• We will ship draft documentation for the MVVM QuickStart.
• The UI styling for the QS was improved, where there will be information icons that display implementation details right on the application.
• The ViewModelBase class will be renamed to ViewModel class, and the INotifyDataErrorInfo interface will be implemented explicitly.
• Data templates will be separated from the QuestionnaireViewModel and put into different views.
• The commanding approach is changed, now we use one of the bulit-in Blend behaviors: the CallMethodAction behavior, and simulate the CanExecute method of the ICommand interface, by binding a boolean method that determines if the control is enabled or not to the IsEnabled property of the control.
• The implementation of some of the ViewModel methods will be simplified.
• Code comments will be added.

MEF/Modularity QuickStart

This QuickStart shows how to load and initialize different modules that have dependencies between them using the Prism Library and MEF.

Challenges:

• How to use MEF for modularity
• Show the different types of module loading
  1. Modules defined in a configuration file
  2. Modules defined in a directory
  3. Modules defined in a XAML file
  4. On Demand modules

What’s next

Some of the next steps for this QS are:

• The Silverlight implementation of the QuickStart will be added.
• Support for background download progress and completion for asynchronous Module calls will be added.
• There will be consistency when loading modules for both Silverlight and WPF.

Expect the next Prism drop for next week.

As always remember that we are community-driven, therefore your feedback is much appreciated and helps making the new version of Prism. You can leave your feedback in the Codeplex site.

Hope this helps,

Diego

Tags: CAL, Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight, MEF, Model View ViewModel, MVVM, Prism 4, Prism 4.0