How do I load user controls dynamically?

Question

How can I load a user control[s] in a window dynamically (using code at runtime)?

Answer 1

Or use binding. Here's a really crude example showing how different WPF controls can be shown in a single WPF window using ContentControl and binding (which is what a toolkit like Prism or Caliburn Micro does).

XAML:

  ...



  ...

Code:

void ShowViewModelDialog (object viewModel)
{
  var host = new MyViewHost();
  FrameworkElement control = null;
  string viewModelName = viewModel.GetType().Name;
  switch (viewModelName )
  {
     case ("ViewModelA"):
       control  = new ViewA();
       break;
     case ("ViewModelB"):
       control  = new ViewB();
       break;
     default:
       control = new TextBlock {Text = String.Format ("No view for {0}", viewModelName);
       break;
  }

  if (control!=null) control.DataContext = viewModel;
  host.DataContext = control;
  host.Show(); // Host window will show either ViewA, ViewB, or TextBlock.
}