I've been looking all over the web for example implementations of an MVC setup in .NET. I have found many examples but they all seem to differ in certain aspects. I have a book on Design Patterns that described that MVC was originated in Smalltalk so I read over several people discussing its implementation in that language. What follows is an example project I wrote utilizing what I gathered was a proper implementation but I've been confused by a few details.
One problem I run into is the proper order of the construction of the objects. Here is the impl in my Program.cs
Model mdl = new Model();
Controller ctrl = new Controller(mdl);
Application.Run(new Form1(ctrl, mdl));
The View: Immediately I have a couple of issues I'm unsure of. First, if the view is supposed to only read data from the Model for updating, but contains a reference to it, what is stopping me from making the calls the controller does to the model from the view? Should a programmer just ignore the fact that they are exposed to the models member functions? Another thought I had, was perhaps the event that informs the view the model is updated, would send some sort of state object for the view to update itself with.
public interface IView
{
double TopSpeed { get; }
double ZeroTo60 { get; }
int VehicleID { get; }
string VehicleName { get; }
}
/// <summary>
/// Assume the form has the following controls
/// A button with a click event OnSaveClicked
/// A combobox with a selected index changed event OnSelectedIndexChanged
/// A textbox that displays the vehicles top speed named mTextTopSpeed
/// A textbox that displays the vehicles zero to 60 time named mTextZeroTo60
/// </summary>
public partial class Form1 : Form, IView
{
private IController mController;
private IModel mModel;
public Form1(IController controller, IModel model)
{
InitializeComponent();
mController = controller;
mController.SetListener(this);
mModel = model;
mModel.ModelChanged += new ModelUpdated(mModel_ModelChanged);
}
void mModel_ModelChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
mTextTopSpeed.Text = mModel.TopSpeed.ToString();
mTextZeroTo60.Text = mModel.ZeroTo60.ToString();
}
public double TopSpeed { get { return Double.Parse(mTextTopSpeed.Text); } }
public double ZeroTo60 { get { return Double.Parse(mTextZeroTo60.Text); } }
public int VehicleID { get { return (int)mComboVehicles.SelectedValue; } }
public string VehicleName { get { return mComboVehicles.SelectedText; } }
#region Form Events
private void OnFormLoad(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
mComboVehicles.ValueMember = "Key";
mComboVehicles.DisplayMember = "Value";
mComboVehicles.DataSource = new BindingSource(mModel.VehicleList, null);
}
private void OnSelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
mController.OnSelectedVehicleChanged();
}
private void OnSaveClicked(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
mController.OnUpdateVehicle();
}
#endregion
}
The Controller: My only real issue with the way I have implemented the controller is that it seems a bit odd to me that is possible to construct the controller without definitely having a view assigned to it. I could ignore the view entirely but that would mean I would pass parameters to the controller's functions for updating the model which seems to miss the point entirely.
public interface IController
{
void OnUpdateVehicle();
void OnSelectedVehicleChanged();
void SetListener(IView view);
}
class Controller : IController
{
private IModel mModel;
private IView mView = null;
public Controller(IModel model)
{
mModel = model;
}
public void OnUpdateVehicle()
{
if(mView == null)
return;
mModel.UpdateVehicle(mView.VehicleID, mView.TopSpeed, mView.ZeroTo60);
}
public void SetListener(IView view)
{
mView = view;
}
public void OnSelectedVehicleChanged()
{
if (mView == null)
return;
mModel.SelectVehicle(mView.VehicleID);
}
}
The Model: In my form, I have a combobox that is a list of the vehicles given in my pseudo database. I feel as though my form should actually implement multiple Views / Models because of this. A view specific to listing the possible vehicles with a corresponding controller / model, and a view for displaying information about the selected vehicle with its own controller / model.
public delegate void ModelUpdated(object sender, EventArgs e);
public interface IModel
{
event ModelUpdated ModelChanged;
void UpdateVehicle(int id, double topSpeed, double zeroTo60);
void SelectVehicle(int id);
double TopSpeed { get; }
double ZeroTo60 { get; }
IDictionary<int, string> VehicleList { get; }
}
// class for the sake of a pseudo database object
class Vehicle
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public double TopSpeed { get; set; }
public double ZeroTo60 { get; set; }
public Vehicle(int id, string name, double topSpeed, double zeroTo60)
{
ID = id;
Name = name;
TopSpeed = topSpeed;
ZeroTo60 = zeroTo60;
}
}
class Model : IModel
{
private List<Vehicle> mVehicles = new List<Vehicle>()
{
new Vehicle(1, "Civic", 120.0, 5.0),
new Vehicle(2, "Batmobile", 9000.0, 1.0),
new Vehicle(3, "Tricycle", 5.0, 0.0)
};
private Vehicle mCurrentVehicle;
public Model()
{
mCurrentVehicle = mVehicles[0];
}
public event ModelUpdated ModelChanged;
public void OnModelChanged()
{
if (ModelChanged != null)
{
ModelChanged(this, new EventArgs());
}
}
public double TopSpeed { get { return mCurrentVehicle.TopSpeed; } }
public double ZeroTo60 { get { return mCurrentVehicle.ZeroTo60; } }
public IDictionary<int, string> VehicleList
{
get
{
Dictionary<int, string> vDict = new Dictionary<int, string>();
foreach (Vehicle v in mVehicles)
{
vDict.Add(v.ID, v.Name);
}
return vDict as IDictionary<int, string>;
}
}
#region Pseudo Database Calls
public void SelectVehicle(int id)
{
foreach (Vehicle v in mVehicles)
{
if (v.ID == id)
{
mCurrentVehicle = v;
OnModelChanged(); // send notification to registered views
break;
}
}
}
public void UpdateVehicle(int id, double topSpeed, double zeroTo60)
{
foreach (Vehicle v in mVehicles)
{
if (v.ID == id)
{
mCurrentVehicle.TopSpeed = topSpeed;
mCurrentVehicle.ZeroTo60 = zeroTo60;
OnModelChanged(); // send notification to registered views
break;
}
}
}
#endregion
}
In Conclusion of this tl;dr, I guess what I'm looking for, is some guidance on whether or not what I'm doing here represents a true MVC implementation and maybe for someone to shed some light on the aforementioned concerns. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.