C UWP: Wiring Prism to Secondary Window Due to Threading - A Guide

C# UWP: Wiring Prism to Secondary Window Due to Threading - A Guide

In the world of Universal Windows Platform (UWP) development, threading can often pose a challenge. One such challenge is wiring Prism to a secondary window. This blog post will guide you through the process, step by step.

Introduction

Prism is a powerful framework for building loosely coupled, maintainable, and testable XAML applications in WPF, Windows 10 UWP, and Xamarin Forms. It provides an implementation of a collection of design patterns that are helpful in writing well-structured and maintainable XAML applications, including MVVM, dependency injection, commands, EventAggregator, and others.

In this tutorial, we’ll focus on how to wire Prism to a secondary window due to threading in a C# UWP application.

Prerequisites

Before we start, make sure you have the following:

• Visual Studio 2019 or later
• A basic understanding of C# and UWP
• Familiarity with Prism

Step 1: Create a New UWP Project

First, let’s create a new UWP project. Open Visual Studio, click on “Create a new project”, and select “Blank App (Universal Windows)”.

Project name: PrismSecondaryWindow
Solution name: PrismSecondaryWindow
Location: [Choose your preferred location]

Step 2: Install Prism

Next, we need to install Prism. Go to “Tools” > “NuGet Package Manager” > “Manage NuGet Packages for Solution”. Search for “Prism.Unity” and install it.

Step 3: Create a Secondary Window

Now, let’s create a secondary window. Right-click on the project, select “Add” > “New Item”, and choose “Blank Page”. Name it “SecondaryWindow.xaml”.

Step 4: Wire Prism to Secondary Window

Here comes the tricky part. We need to wire Prism to the secondary window. This is where threading comes into play.

In UWP, each window runs on its own thread. This means that the secondary window cannot directly access the main window’s data context. To overcome this, we’ll use Prism’s EventAggregator to communicate between the two windows.

In the main window, we’ll publish an event:

_eventAggregator.GetEvent<OpenSecondaryWindowEvent>().Publish();

In the secondary window, we’ll subscribe to this event:

_eventAggregator.GetEvent<OpenSecondaryWindowEvent>().Subscribe(OpenSecondaryWindow);

The OpenSecondaryWindow method will handle the creation of the secondary window:

private async void OpenSecondaryWindow()
{
    await CoreApplication.CreateNewView().Dispatcher.RunAsync(CoreDispatcherPriority.Normal, () =>
    {
        var frame = new Frame();
        frame.Navigate(typeof(SecondaryWindow), null);
        Window.Current.Content = frame;
        Window.Current.Activate();
    });
}

Step 5: Test the Application

Finally, let’s test our application. Run the project and check if the secondary window opens correctly.

Conclusion

Wiring Prism to a secondary window due to threading in a C# UWP application can be challenging, but with the right approach, it becomes manageable. This tutorial provided a step-by-step guide on how to achieve this using Prism’s EventAggregator.

Remember, each window in UWP runs on its own thread, which can make communication between windows tricky. However, with Prism’s EventAggregator, we can easily overcome this challenge.

We hope this guide was helpful. Stay tuned for more posts on advanced C# UWP topics!

Keywords

• C# UWP
• Prism
• Secondary Window
• Threading
• EventAggregator
• Visual Studio
• XAML
• MVVM
• Dependency Injection
• Commands
• Design Patterns

Meta Description

Learn how to wire Prism to a secondary window due to threading in a C# UWP application. This step-by-step guide will help you overcome the challenges of threading in UWP with the help of Prism’s EventAggregator.

About Saturn Cloud

Saturn Cloud is your all-in-one solution for data science & ML development, deployment, and data pipelines in the cloud. Spin up a notebook with 4TB of RAM, add a GPU, connect to a distributed cluster of workers, and more. Join today and get 150 hours of free compute per month.