Navigation using commands

In most cases navigation between pages within an application will occur based upon some user input, for example clicking a button. In MVVM applications this is usually performed by the button data-binding to a command on the view-model (i.e. an implementation of the ICommand interface). Whilst you can easily write your own navigation commands using the DelegateCommand class, the Okra App Framework also provides dedicated commands for typical navigation scenarios.

Navigating to pages with commands

The INavigationBase.GetNavigateToCommand(…) extension method returns a command that will navigate to the specified page. Optionally, a parameter may also be provided. In general you use the navigation commands as follows,

[ViewModelExport("MyPageName")]
public class MyViewModel : MyViewModelBase
{
    private readonly INavigationBase navigationManager;

    [ImportingConstructor]
    public MyViewModel(INavigationContext navigationContext)
    {
        this.navigationManager = navigationContext.GetCurrent();
        this.GoToPage2Command  = navigationManager.GetNavigateToCommand("Page 2");
    }

    public ICommand GoToPage2Command { get; private set; }
}

Note that the GoToPage2Command is defined as a public property, and initialized in the view-model constructor. You can then bind a button to this command in your XAML as follows,

<Button Command="{Binding GoToPage2Command}"/>

Navigating backwards with commands

In addition to navigating to new pages, the Okra App Framework provides a INavigationBase.GetGoBackCommand() extension method, which is generally bound to the page’s back button. In addition, this will automatically disable any bound buttons if the user is at the start of the navigation stack.

[ViewModelExport("MyPageName")]
public class MyViewModel : MyViewModelBase
{
    private readonly INavigationBase navigationManager;

    [ImportingConstructor]
    public MyViewModel(INavigationContext navigationContext)
    {
        this.navigationManager = navigationContext.GetCurrent();
        this.GoBackCommand = navigationManager.GetGoBackCommand();
    }

    public ICommand GoBackCommand { get; private set; }
}