Prism v2 - Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight | The Continuum Show

Composite Application Guidance, affectionately known as Prism, version 2 has been released. Prism provides guidance and code that can help you build modular applications that can adapt to constant changing requirements. In this video, Blaine Wastell provides a quick overview and demonstrates a Silverlight and WPF application using shared code.

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BERTOLOF1962 This is me infront of my pc.

Feb 18, 2009 at 1:31 PM

This was a very good demonstration of Prism version 2, for Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight! When I have just downloaded and install this brand new program on my harddrive, so shall I take my time to learn myself how to use it of course of this simple reason: I have never use it before so this shall be the very first time when I am a beginner with this kind of program. But I hope to do this as soon as possible.
zinovate

Feb 18, 2009 at 7:53 PM

Rock on guys, sweet release and the addition of the Silverlight support is AWESOME.
Thanks guys.
Maddus Mattus Maddus on C9, Is often controversial, But fun none-the-less -evildictaitor

Feb 19, 2009 at 6:02 AM

Can't wait to use it in future projects!
vesuvius Count Orlock

Feb 19, 2009 at 6:44 AM

It really would have been better had you jumped into a code demo. I watched a Brian Noyes demo on dnrtv which was excellent as there is a demonstration into how two loosely coupled user controls can be made into publishers and subscribers, the code is very elegant (not like the mess left in Windows Forms).

The MVVM stuff with Karl [Shiftlett] is cool, but this even more so?

Why is it that Patterns and Practices call this "Model View Presenter" but Josh Smith etc. go with Model View View Model, how about just calling it one thing please guys?
AdamKinney Agent of Change

Feb 20, 2009 at 8:25 AM

The names are different because the patterns are different. Check out Josh Smith's MVVM article for a full explaination but here's a quote:

"Unlike the Presenter in MVP, a ViewModel does not need a reference to a view"
stormideas stormideas - expertly crafted web applications

Feb 22, 2009 at 9:41 AM

This is really useful stuff. I've spent the last few months putting together a fairly large Silverlight 2 collaboration application called colaab:

http://www.colaab.com

And I've run into many of the problems that the Prism release seeks to address and if you're looking at building complex RIAs using Silverlight you could do a lot worse than using it as a starting point.

There's also a good article on MVVM in Silverlight in this months MSDN Magazine:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd458800.aspx

Thanks,

Bob
vesuvius Count Orlock

Feb 24, 2009 at 10:23 PM

Will read, thanks for the link.
akMSFT

Feb 27, 2009 at 10:20 AM

For demo, please check out these four screen casts:

Screen cast 1 of 4 - Creating a shell and modules
Screen cast 2 of 4 - Visual Composition
Screen cast 3 of 4 - Implementing views and services
Screen cast 4 of 4 - Decoupled Communication
gblahaerath

Feb 28, 2009 at 10:53 AM
gblahaerath

Feb 28, 2009 at 11:14 AM

There is an underlying premise to presenter that implies a tighter coupling for the state of the presenter to the view. It's not unusual for the presenter to reference the view and the view to bind to state on the presenter. The presenter also provides behavior to the view, responding to events and such. With WPF, the advanced forms of data binding it provides can eliminate the need for code to control behavior. A lot of behavior can now be described in state as XAML. The view model eliminates any notion of behavior control, and is a simple layer of data over the model. The view model becomes the data context for the template controls, and the controls themselves will interpret this state and may even fire off commands to services "somewhere out there." In many cases in WPF if you have a presenter, your may find it devoid of anything useful and your view and view model classes just full of property fields.
Stewart

Apr 03, 2009 at 10:52 AM

First of all, I would like to thank you for these vides - these videos are much more easlier to learn than the CAB libraries and your tutorials here make it quite easy to learn.

What I would like to see is similar tutorials using Expression Blend 2/3 in conjunction with PRISM setup. This is what I am interested in enterrprise applications at work. What would be interested is steps in making a PRISM based User interface from ground up using Blend that once done could be handled off to staff of Services API developers to developed the services behind the scene. Ideally it would be nice if all interface development on client side will be done in Blend and API done using Visual Studio 2008.

I am also be interested if anything in Prism will allow the modules to be in seperate domains - this is so if one screen in application. crashes it does not crash the reset of applications. This may not be the intent of PRISM. Is it invision to have multiple application using same shell - or should each application have its own shell.

Also on a older designed system, I am wounder from the PRISM folks if there is any plans for tutorial for migrating the older Winforms CAB applications to PRISM - it would be nice to have this out there also for our needs.

I recently made a prototype for the project I am working that is based on FamilyShow source, which I believe is very similar to MVVM stuff and planning on going back through the prototype with PRISM concepts - but ideal I would like Expression Blend for designing the UI parts of projects.

Another concern that I have with projects is sperating the User Interface from the services in the solution. Any thoughts on your designed people on this side would also be useful.

Anyway thanks for tutorial and keep it coming
Stewart

Apr 08, 2009 at 7:27 AM

One more thing I am curious is there a recommend method for handling dialogs in PRISM applications. I like the idea of keeping screens modular and I am curious what your recommendatioins are here. Keep in mind the application is primary WPF with possibility of SilverLight later.
rcbapb

Jun 24, 2009 at 12:18 PM

Hi guys - I am trying to watch the video in high quality (with the normal quality ones, you can't read any code), but the links don't work. Could this be fixed? Thank!
Vishal82

Oct 30, 2009 at 2:01 AM

Hi All,

I am trying to make Shell as UserControl in WPF Composite application. I Started by modifying the Quickstart app: "Quickstarts\UI Composition\ViewDiscovery". I made "UIComposition.Desktop.csproj" a UserControl class library with Shell.xaml as UserControl. Created another WPFApplication to host the Shell. Added the following code in App.xaml.cs:

protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)
{
base.OnStartup(e);
Bootstrapper bootStrapper = new Bootstrapper();
bootStrapper.Run();
// Get ShellContainer from IOC
IUnityContainer container = bootStrapper.Container;
var shellElement = container.Resolve<Shell>();
ShellContainer win = new ShellContainer();
// Add the ShellContainer UserControl to the main window
win.mygrid.Children.Add(shellElement);
win.Show();
}

The form shows up with the shell but when I click on the employee it doesn't show the details view. Please help!!! If any body has tried this.
Thanks & Regards,
Vishal.