Getting Unity to Resolve views in XAML

Question

I\'m starting out with MVVM, and I\'m starting to understand things. I\'m currently experimenting with the Cinch framework, though I\'m not committed to it as of yet.
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Answer 1

This problem is normally solved using Regions and the RegionManager. In the main window ViewModel, a set of Regions is created and added to the RegionManager. Then ViewModels can be Resolved and added to the Region.Views collection.

In XAML, the Region is normally injected by having the ItemsSource property of an ItemsControl bound to the region property of the main ViewModel.

So, in the main screen ViewModel you would have something like this:

    public class TestScreenViewModel
{
    public const string MainRegionKey = "TestScreenViewModel.MainRegion";

    public TestScreenViewModel(IUnityContainer container, IRegionManager regionManager)
    {
        this.MainRegion = new Region();
        regionManager.Regions.Add(MainRegionKey, this.MainRegion);
    }

    public Region MainRegion { get; set; }
}

This would be Resolved normally in your IModule

        #region IModule Members

    public void Initialize()
    {
        RegisterViewsAndServices();

        var vm = Container.Resolve<SelectorViewModel>();
        var mainScreen = Container.Resolve<TestScreenViewModel>();
        mainScreen.MainRegion.Add(vm);

        var mainView = ContentManager.AddContentView("Test harness", mainScreen);
    }

    #endregion

And the XAML representation of your template looking something like

    <DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type TestModule:TestScreenViewModel}">
    <ScrollViewer ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto">
        <StackPanel>
            <ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding Path=MainRegion.Views}" />
        </StackPanel>
    </ScrollViewer>
</DataTemplate>

Answer 2

The way to solve your problem is to make your window to have a ViewModel as well, with ViewModels of UserControls exposes as properties on it. Then in your XAML for a window you'd simply use Binding mechanism to bind UserControl's DataContexts to proper properties of your your main ViewModel. And since that main ViewModel is resolved from Unity container it would have all other ViewModel-s injected as needed.