wpf - How to open a new window using MVVM Light Toolkit

Question

I am using MVVM Light toolkit in my WPF application. I would like to know what is the best approach for opening a new window from an existing window. I have got this MainViewModel, which is responsible for MainWindow of my application. Now in the MainView, on a button click, I would like to open a second window on top of it. I have got RelayCommmand binded to the Button's Command. In the RelayCommand's method, I can create a new window object and simply call Show(), something like this:

var view2 = new view2()
view2.Show()

but I don't think the ViewModel should be responsible for creating the new view2 object. I have read this post WPF MVVM Get Parent from VIEW MODEL where Bugnion has suggested to pass message to the view1 from the viewmodel1 and then view1 should create the new view2. But I am not sure what does he actually mean by passing the message to the view1? How should the view1 handle the message? In it's code behind or what?

Regards, Nabeel

Answer 1

Passing a message from ViewModel1 to View1 means to use the messaging capabilities in the MVVM Light Toolkit.

For example, your ViewModel1 could have a command called ShowView2Command, then it would send a message to display the view.

public class ViewModel1 : ViewModelBase
{
    public RelayCommand ShowView2Command { private set; get; }

    public ViewModel1() : base()
    {
        ShowView2Command = new RelayCommand(ShowView2CommandExecute);
    }

    public void ShowView2CommandExecute()
    {
        Messenger.Default.Send(new NotificationMessage("ShowView2"));
    }
}

View1 would register to receive messages in its code behind and display View2 when it receives the correct message.

public partial class View1 : UserControl
{
    public View1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        Messenger.Default.Register<NotificationMessage>(this, NotificationMessageReceived);
    }

    private void NotificationMessageReceived(NotificationMessage msg)
    {
        if (msg.Notification == "ShowView2")
        {
            var view2 = new view2();
            view2.Show();
        }
    }
}