How to subscribe to an event in a child usercontrol in Silverlight? - silverlight

Question

I've got a usercontrol (MyUC) that is programatically added to a page (MainPage) several times.
In MyUC I set the DataContext to a view model like this:
private void UserControl_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
DataContext = new MyUCViewModel();
}
In my view model (MyUCViewModel) I have a collection of data items:
public MyDataItemCollection MyDataItems { get; private set; }
And in the constructor I have:
public MyUCViewModel()
{
this.MyDataItems = new MyDataItemCollection();
this.MyDataItems.ChosenItems.CollectionChanged += new NotifyCollectionChangedEventHandler(ChosenItemsChanged);
this.MyDataItems.Add(new DataItem());
}
From the above MyDataItems has another collection in it for ChosenItems and I added a NotifyCollectionChangedEventHandler to it.
Other parts of my code add and remove from the ChosenItems collection and that part seems to work ok.
Next I have the event handler method in the view model:
private void ChosenItemsChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
MessageBox.Show("Chosen Items Changed");
}
This also works and I get a messagebox everytime the user makes a change in the UI that affects the ChosenItems collection.
The part I'm trying to figure out now is how do I set it up so that my MainPage does something when the ChosenItemsChanged event fires in my user controls. What I want to do is have the MainPage loop through the generated MyUC controls on the page and make each usercontrol call a method.

Answer 1

You can add more event listeners in the MainPage like this:
MyUCViewModel viewModel = myUC.DataContext;
viewModel.MyDataItems.ChosenItems.CollectionChanged
+= new NotifyCollectionChangedEventHandler(MainPage_ChosenItemsChanged);

Answer 2

This is based on the comment as the question was a little misleading:
While not strictly MVVM, as your question appears to be, your should write your User Controls as if it was a third-party control and simply expose a custom event on it. User Controls should always be a black-box with a public interface. For a reusable control that is self-contained (as many are) MVVM is overkill.
e.g.
in your User Control add:
public event EventHandler<MyEventArgs> MyEvent
Create a MyEventArgs class deriving from EventArgs and get it to hold useful parameters (like the selected item).
In your main page add a handler to MyEvent on each User Control you dynamically add.
I actually think the MVVM model is flawed and all this sort of controlling logic and event handlers belong in a Controller class (MVCVM!), but that's another story. :)