[mono-android] MVVM framework

Wed Nov 9 19:37:17 EST 2011

I used phonegap perviously, peronally I prefer a type safe language but
that is purely personal. Mainability is challenging even when using MVVM
javascipt libraries.

On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 1:18 PM, Glen Hassell <mrhassell at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm excited at the prospect of using HTML5 web sockets, in preference to
> some of the other clunky technologies.
>
> CSS3 + HTML 5 - for me is equal to Silverlight.
>
> OK - There I said it...
>
> Glen
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 11:03 AM, Gabe Codina <Gabe at agtrix.com> wrote:
>
>> This is great – I primarily develop Silverlight web apps – our customers
>> are now wanting to use ipads and android tablets so we have been
>> investigating mono among other things.  The bindings are what is missing
>> from Android/Mono I can see that this is not core for Xamarin as the UI on
>> the different platforms requires different approaches. At the moment our
>> managers are heading towards html5 or windows 8 on tablets however this
>> kind of thing could swing the pendulum towards Android.  ****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> I know very little about iOS is there anything similar to WPF bindings in
>> iOS ?****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Gabriel****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> *From:* monodroid-bounces at lists.ximian.com [mailto:
>> monodroid-bounces at lists.ximian.com] *On Behalf Of *Richard Wilburn
>> *Sent:* Thursday, 10 November 2011 8:18 AM
>> *To:* Discussions related to Mono for Android
>> *Cc:* Rhys Walden; monotouch at lists.ximian.com
>> *Subject:* Re: [mono-android] MVVM framework****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I have launched this project(https://github.com/rhwilburn/MVVM-for-Mono)
>> on GitHub, anyone who wants to join or watch the projects progress can here:
>>
>> https://github.com/rhwilburn/MVVM-for-Mono/wiki
>>
>> As the project is in its early stages its open to more influence now.
>> Some vague outline code of what the object model might look like has been
>> uploaded currently.
>>
>> *We need people* especially in these areas:****
>>
>>    - Analysis and Documentation (to grow our wiki and make code
>>    examples). Scoping items would be helpful too. Writing a good sales pitch
>>    etc would be nice too.****
>>    - Analysis and Unit test writer (to spec our requirements).
>>    Continuous integration would be nice too if practical.****
>>    - MonoDroid and MonoTouch Developers to satisfy specs/unit tests.****
>>
>> *
>> Any level of participation*, even to provide constructive criticism is
>> appreciated as many hands make light work. Currently we have myself and one
>> other person signed up.
>>
>> Our project will enable *more code sharing* between WP7/Android/iOS
>> which should benefit most if not all of us as Mono users by *increasing
>> producivity*. The less people we have the tighter we will have to scope
>> the project, meaning that we would scope ourselves currently to Android
>> only and a minimum set of binding features (I would love to support iOS
>> asap).
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Richard.****
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Richard Wilburn <rhwilburn at gmail.com>
>> wrote:****
>>
>> Hi Emiel
>>
>> I have given it a few thoughts already (based off only a quick class
>> diagram that was sketched up over a few hours), and the main flow at the
>> moment is (definately flexible to change):
>>
>> 1) parse the xml in the axml and put it into object model.
>> 1.1) strip out bindings from the axml file and fetch the id etc of that
>> element. Fetch the property and binding info before stripping it and put it
>> in the object model.
>> 2) use a visitor pattern in a parser like way to decipher the binding data
>> 2.1) as a visitor visits a valid binding, it pushes it to a
>> bindingfactory class.
>> 3) BindingLifecycleFactory class is an abstract factory that handles the
>> lifecycle of the bindings, ie setup, teardown and caching of bindings with
>> respect to pages. (caching low priority)
>> 4) BindingFactory will setup a single binding between a control and a
>> viewmodel property. It will interact with the following parts:
>> 4.1) ValueConverter
>> 4.2) Binding (which only works against objects which use
>> INotifyPropertyChanged interface)
>>
>> As for the question about reflection, im not sure that it would matter if
>> we did use reflection because:
>>
>> 1) We can cache bindings, so they will only be created once and can be
>> "paused" when no longer relevant.
>> 2) we can as part of our caching, we can pre cache bindings before going
>> to the next page via a background worker process.
>> 3) a non type safe binding is never stored, so reflective style
>> processing would only ever be done once.
>>
>> I do however believe that it is ideal to minimize or remove reflection,
>> but this would be a secondary aim after getting a proof of concept working.
>> I am definately open to ideas on how to get this working. I imagine we
>> might be able to emit some code or something if we really had to go there.
>> I think ultimately though, that caching should work because with MVVM you
>> shouldn't be creating bindings on the fly, everything is created up front,
>> even for situations like treeview controls etc where they use heirarchical
>> templates and bindings again are done up front.
>>
>> We are definately keen to get more people interested in this, even if
>> only to provide critique or suggestion of our approach (or for one off
>> effort, ie no commitments). I think MVVM can add alot of value to Mono
>> developers because viewmodels can be shared, meaning potentially only  some
>> value converters and all views are platform specific. With that said, we
>> can also potentially make axml look very similar in bindings to WPF to
>> reduce the learning curve down, making Windows phone and android
>> development almost identical. iOS looks more like winforms, which can be
>> bent to a MVVM pattern (I haven't investigated that in depth).
>>
>> We also have experience in setting up projects for nuget, so we would
>> also be bringing that to the project. See here:
>> https://github.com/edys/Ninject-prism-ext
>>
>> -Richard.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 8:28 PM, Emiel Metselaar <edmetselaar at gmail.com>
>> wrote:****
>>
>> Richard****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Interesting. Do you already have some thoughts on how to implement the
>> bindings, reflection seems expensive. I have played around with the func
>> and action delegates to do some form of binding, but ofcourse this does not
>> work from an axml file...****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Emiel****
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 9:50 PM, Richard Wilburn <rhwilburn at gmail.com>
>> wrote:****
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> A friend and I are looking at making a MVVM framework that will enable
>> monodroid (and eventually iphone too) to have bindings like silverlight etc.
>>
>> We have started some modelling work on this, based off of what we have
>> learned from a hack migration of this poorly modeled project:
>> http://www.codeproject.com/KB/android/AndroidMVVM.aspx
>>
>> We are keen to put this project onto github/nuget if there is interest
>> from anyone else in developing it. I don't believe the size of the project
>> is that large, since we can scope it down nicely. Even if someone is
>> interested in doing a single class to help out that would be cool.
>>
>> We feel that a MVVM framework will maximize our reuseability between
>> WPF/Silverlight/WP7/Android/iphone.
>>
>> If you are interested just reply to this email, and we will set up our
>> current code on github, and share our details.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Richard.****
>>
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>
>
> --
> Glen Hassell
> Inner Technique
> http://innertech.com.au/
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