SilverlightShow: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started Comments

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 13:31:29 GMT

Hi Jan,

Glad you are enjoying it. For more in depth coverage, definitely check out the book I co-authored with the team, available online here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg406140.aspx, also downloadable as PDF or purchasable as a print book from O'Reilly.

Thanks

Brian

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

jan2013 — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 11:55:40 GMT

Hi Brian,

I just wanted to say a big thank you for this great article!! I've been searching the internet for introductions to PRSIM, and even though I'm only reading through part one I can already tell this is by far the best explanation I've found as it has helped me understand a few fundamental topics in just a few lines of text - well done!!

Cheers,

Jan

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

JMDEV — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 00:37:28 GMT

HI , the tuto doesn't work on my config (win8 and vss2013 preview ) because the "Build Action" of the "ModuleCatalog.xaml " wasn't on "Page" and in my first comment if I saw the messagebox its because I put it on the mainpage after try some solutions , sorry. and thanks a lot for this series

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:41:56 GMT

Actually, I didn't think that response through. Nothing has changed at all in terms of Silverlight in 2013 release or on Win8 (other than only being able to run Silverlight from the desktop IE, not the start screen IE). So I can't explain why that would be the case.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:38:36 GMT

Hi JMDEV,

Thanks for the info. Had not tried it yet on VS 2013 and Win 8. I'll have to look into that, but I suspect it is because they are doing more and more asynchronous stuff under the covers, so the code path that assumes everything can be loaded synchronously may not be working the same any more.

I'll let the Prism team know.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

JMDEV — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 00:16:08 GMT

Hello Bryan

First Thanks a lot for your series ,very helpful for getting started and understand with Prism!

with visual studio 2013 and Windows 8 ,I need to Had "InitializationMode="WhenAvailable" , in ModuleCatalog.xaml , if not I can't see the messagebox (Firefox or IE).

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 17:25:37 GMT

Hi jlsfernandez,

Thanks for the feedback. I could certainly entertain doing a follow on post about a custom user authorization-based module catalog. I'm been focusing more on WinRT and HTML 5 topics lately, but will try to find some time to write an article on that.

For the authentication question, what you are describing is certainly possible if the Silverlight app is running in the browser, but the details of how to go about it are complicated and I don't know them off the top of my head. A better source for OAuth articles and blogging is Dominick Baier (www.leastprivilege.com).

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

jlsfernandez — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 09:16:09 GMT

Hello Bryan

First Thanks a lot for your series (and for your PluralSight Courses also ;-) )

I would like to know (i toke your reflexion about a future good article) how to extend the module catalog to have a per user functionality availability modules list.

Also it would be good if you could let me know where i can find and example that let me have a previous to the Silverlight application an HTML5 login page with WIF (Oauth capabilities) that later the silverlight application can use.

Thanks a lot

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:06:20 GMT

Prism will make sure that your ViewModel is the DataContext at the TabItem level. That means you can set up a style to set the Header of the TabItem based off a property exposed from your ViewModel:

 <Style TargetType="TabItem">
            <Setter Property="Header" Value="{Binding Content.DataContext.HeaderInfo, RelativeSource={RelativeSource Self}}"/>
        Style>

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

michael88 — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:05:05 GMT

Thanks Brian,
I used tabcontrol and it worked perfectly. So each view activates on tab respective selection. How do I put a tab header? It should be different for different tab/view ?

I really appreciate the effort you have put in. Really usefull for a begineer like me :)

cheers !!

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:19:58 GMT

If your container control is a ContentControl, then you will have to call Activate on IRegionManager in each module to show each one at a time. If you put them in a TabControl, they should all show up as tabs, and Activate just selects the tab. Each module just needs to Import (if using MEF) or declare a constructor dependency (if using Unity) to inject IRegionManager so that they can call Add with the appropriate region name to add their views to it.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

michael88 — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:20:42 GMT

Hi,

I am a beginner in prism, was trying out your sample.

as you said in step 10 , I have added a region in shell .

If I have multiple modules, how do i add multiple views to the same region ?

As of now am not able to see the second view in the region.

Thanks,..

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 01:09:31 GMT

Hi Ethan,

I hate it when my reading audience actually pays attention to everything I say. :)

Guilty as charged. When I wrote that, I had in mind the experience of WPF and putting your module configuration in a .config file that you could actually change without recompiling. You are correct that due to the deployment model of Silverlight, you would have to recompile.

However, the modularity in Prism is extensible, it is not too hard to write your own IModuleCatalog, register it with the container instead of the default one, and have yours make a web service call to pull down the configuration (possibly different on a per user basis in that case if they are authenticated and you know their identity on the client side with something like RIA Services security - see my other article series on that) at runtime from the server side. That configuration could then take on any shape you like and be modified as often as needed without any redeployment being necessary.

Here is one such example: http://dotnet-mcts.jecaestevez.com/2011/05/using-server-side-prism-module-catalog.html

hope that helps.

Brian

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

ethan — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 00:45:14 GMT

Since the ModuleCatalog.xaml file is a resource, wouldn't the DLL have to be recompiled if the catalog was modified? If so, I take it the statement "outside the compiled code so that it could potentially be changed on the deployment site to add or remove modules without needing to recompile anything" is referring to a ModuleCatalog.xaml file that would be hosted on the web site?

Thanks again for this great series of articles. I feel like I'm one or two hurdles away from having everything just like I need it.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 01:04:05 GMT

It should, as long as you have bumped the version info and deployed the updated XAP to the web site that the originals came from.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

ethan — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 22:55:01 GMT

Will the Application.Current.CheckAndDownloadUpdateAsync() cause modules that have been modified to be updated?

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

VuyiswaMaseko — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 22:49:17 GMT

It seems like the site that has PRISM Templates has been abondoned http://dphill.members.winisp.net/Templates.html

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

Nuitari — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 12:48:12 GMT

Thank you for the article, very helpful for getting started with Prism! The Template Pack worked with Silverlight 5/Prism 4.1 without problems.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

MduduziShelembe — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 19:28:18 GMT

Great Article! Thanks.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 18:52:59 GMT

Ah, yes, that is always required in multi-module Prism projects. Glad you found it, well done.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

MaherJendoubi2012 — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 18:39:47 GMT

I find the answer : Microsoft.Practices.Prism.MefExtensions this assembly should be referenced with Copy Local = True only once (e.g. the main project), and with Copy Local = False in all other projects.

Thank you Brian! Great article!

Maher Jendoubi.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 16:47:57 GMT

Most likely cause is one of your other references to Silverlight assemblies is on a v4 reference and needs to be updated to a v5 reference. The System.ComponentModel.Composition one is an important one to check since that got updated in v5.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

MaherJendoubi2012 — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 15:18:30 GMT

Brian,

I tried to update the source code of Prism 101 to Prism 4.1 and Silverlight 5. After building the solution, I run the solution and I get the following message: An unhandled exception ('Unhandled Error in Silverlight Application

Code: 4004

Category: ManagedRuntimeError

Message: Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Modularity.ModuleInitializeException: An exception occured while inilizing module 'CoreModule'.

Maher Jendoubi.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

MaherJendoubi2012 — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 14:54:27 GMT

Brian,

Code: 4004

Category: ManagedRuntimeError

Message: Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Modularity.ModuleInitializeException: An exception occured while inilizing module 'CoreModule'.

Maher Jendoubi.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

Ali3dc — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:42:53 GMT

This Article Is Great , Thank You . You Describe Prism Concepst Very Well And I Agree With Article About how it is possible to download modules depending user identity , Its Gone Be Very Interesting , Thank you Brian

Ali Azhdari

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:35:12 GMT

TKelley,

There is no reason the client side code has to be in a module or loaded that way. I often will just create a Silverlight class library and reference it from the modules that need those services because often the way you want to factor your client side code into modules does not map 1:1 with the way you want to factor your services. If it is 1:1, then by all means just do the client link to the server library project from the module using the technique I show in the other article series of opening the csproj file and editing the XML link path.

For the server side, you are correct that you just add references to those libraries from the host. The host will also need the right references and some configuration information in its config file, and the easiest way to get that there is to add a dummy Domain Service to the web host project and then just delete the Domain Service class from there.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

TKelley — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 05:04:28 GMT

Thanks Brian,

So for each WCF RIA Services pair, I add the service project reference to the server for hosting and then load the client project via module initialization?

thanks,

Tim

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:10:25 GMT

Tim,

I've worked on a number of them, but they are products for companies that don't publicly post their source code. But the patterns discussed in part 9 of my article series / chapter 9 in the ebook shows how to partition the client side libraries and corresponding server side libraries. It would be exactly like that except the client side libraries could be Prism modules if you chose.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

TKelley — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:34:22 GMT

Hey Brian,

Is there a good example of using WCF RIA services with Prism? How would I share services between modules? Is there a good example of using WCF RIA services with Prism?

Is there an example of an enterprise application(multiple modules and navigation) that follows the pattern outlined in chapter 9 of your WCF RIA services book?

thanks,

Tim

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

tle — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 08:37:04 GMT

Thank Brian, I'll keep post if I get it work.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 00:24:32 GMT

George,

Great suggestions. I'll try to work those into the article on custom module loading to the extent that I can fit it all.

Brian

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 00:23:55 GMT

tle,

Sorry, but have not tried embedding SMF into a Prism application myself, although I have worked with customers that have and they have not reported any problems with it. There is nothing special about Prism being used to load up the views or the modules. Once they are loaded, they are part of the Silverlight visual tree and the mechanisms of SMF should work fine. I'm afraid I am unable to say what might be causing you problems there.

Brian

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

George.S — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:48:31 GMT

Great starter tutorial. I'd like to see articles including the following topics:

1. As you suggested, a custom module loader that gets a list of modules a user is authorized to use.

2. Deeper dive into MEF and Prism -- How to utilize the container in many modules a la Unity; ImportMany; and clear explanations of how to use other useful techniques beyond the basics.

3. Examples of friendly reporting errors to the user from exceptions thrown in various places, especially in a shared Prism service that is utilized by more than one user interface Module.

Thanks, especially for the clarity of your examples.

George

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

tle — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 09:12:24 GMT

Great Articles and really what I want. Great job Brian.

Got a question, have you ever try to place smf player under prism4.0 container. I did try the player is show up but can't play the stream. Here is the code in xaml of view

Have been trying to find the root cause and can't.

Thanks

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

SbastienBrasseur — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:35:02 GMT

Great Introduction! Now it sounds clear to me what is Prism and I think it is a good starting point to dive into the intricacies of Prism in the next articles you will provide!

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

geertd — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:43:07 GMT

Brian,

Thanks for the update.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

brian.noyes — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 13:13:15 GMT

Planning on one article every two weeks or so. Looking at probably 4 more articles on commands and events, MVVM support, navigation with regions.sounds like one on custom modularity loading is of interest as well.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

geertd — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:04:23 GMT

Very clear and to the point. Like it. Is there a schedule for the next parts?

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

truyenle — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:19:30 GMT

Awesome article and the reference in step 12. I have been searching for this for couple of days. Looking forward to see the next article especially the " write module catalog implementation that went out and made a service call with the logged in user identity to get back a tailored list per user of what modules to download and load"

Truyenle

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

joesimon — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:18:28 GMT

Thank you, good article!

I have just started to learn Prism, so it's very usefull for me.

"The module loader is also extensible, so if you wanted to write your own module catalog implementation that went out and made a service call with the logged in user identity to get back a tailored list per user of what modules to download and load, you could easily do that as well. In fact, that might make a good future article… leave a comment if you would like to see that."

I'm interested in how it is possible to download modules depending user identity.

Re: Working with Prism 4 Part 1: Getting Started

Arterius — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 10:36:07 GMT

Thank you. Good and easy understanding article. I will wait impatiently to remaining parts. Also I would very much like articles about MVVM Light Toolkit.