How should I pass property values from View to Model in MVVM? - wpf

Question

I have three classes,
first:
public class Setting
which has properties:
string ID, string Value; (implements INotifyPropertyChanged on Value)
Second:
public class SettingCollection
which is a:
ObservableCollection<Setting>
Third:
public class SimObject
which has properties:
string ID, SettingsCollection Settings;
I have a View:
SettingsDisplay.xaml
which has dependency property:
SettingsCollection SimObjSettings;
and displays the setting's ID and with its Value in a TextBox inside an ItemsContainer.
My MainWindow ViewModel has a SimObject Jeff; and in the View I have
<local:SettingsDisplay SimObjSettings="{Binding Jeff.Settings}"/>
This all works fine.
I need to know when a Setting Value changes and when that happens I need to know the SimObject ID the Setting belongs to so that I can call a method that sends an event with the Setting ID, Value and the SimObject ID. (e.g. SendEvent(settingID, settingValue, targetObject))
Obviously Setting's and SettingCollection's have no knowledge of what SimObject they belong to.
The way I've tried to do this is in the Setting class call SendEvent in the Value property's Setter.
I'm struggling to find a suitable way to pass the SimObject's ID down the chain to the Setting's class, I also don't think this is a good solution.
What is the best way to acheive what I'm trying to do?

Answer 1

There are lots of ways to do this, but obviously all of them involve someone observing the SettingsCollection and dynamically attaching/detaching PropertyChanged handlers to all items inside it (at least that's what your requirements sound to me).
I would argue that if all you want is unconditional live updetes you should not involve the Views and ViewModels at all in this. Simply write an implementation of something like this:
interface ISimObjLiveUpdateService
{
void StartObserving(SimObject o);
bool IsObserving(SimObject o);
bool StopObserving(SimObject o);
}
The actual implementation would hook up to observe o.SettingsCollection and all items in it. Before you display a SimObject you StartObserving it, and when the view is closed you StopObserving it.

Answer 2

I ended up solving this by giving all Setting's a SimObject property, which was the setting's SimObject owner, and creating an event handler delegate void SettingHandler(string settingID, string settingValue, string targetObj);
in SimObject : public event SettingHandler SettingChanged;
public void RaiseSettingChangedEvent(string settingId, string settingValue, string targetObj)
{
if (SettingChanged != null)
{
SettingChanged(settingId, settingValue, targetObj);
}
}
In Setting on the string Value Setter:
set
{
_value = value;
RaisePropertyChanged("Value");
SimObject.RaiseSettingChangedEvent(ID, Value, SimObject.Settings["UID"].Value);
}
Then in SettingsDisplay I created a SelectedPropertyChangedCallback which adds the ParameterChanged event to the SimObject and also contains the SettingChanged method:
public void SettingChanged(string settingID, string settingValue, string targetObj)
{
Framework.GetBusinessDelegate().SendEvent(settingID, settingValue, targetObj);
}
Don't know how to add syntax highlighting to make this answer clearer.