Why RelayCommand

Question

I've been programming a lot in WPF lately but my View and ViewModel are not separate at this point. Well, it's partially. All my bindings concerned to text in text boxes, content for labels, lists in datagrids, ... are done by regular properties with a NotifyPropertyChanged event in them.

All my events for handling button clicks or text changed stuff is done by linking the events. Now, I wanted to start working with commands and found this article: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/126249/MVVM-Pattern-in-WPF-A-Simple-Tutorial-for-Absolute. It has an explanation of how to set up MVVM but I'm confused with the RelayCommand.

What job does it do? Is it useable for all commands in my form? How do I make the button disable when (a) certain text box(es) are not filled in?

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EDIT 1:

A good explanation to "Is it useable for all commands in my form?" is answered here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/22286816/3357699

Here is the code I have so far: https://stackoverflow.com/a/22289358/3357699

Answer 1

Commands are used to separate the semantics and the object that invokes a command from the logic that executes the command i.e. it separates UI component from the logic that needs to be executed on command invocation. So, that you can test business logic separately using test cases and also your UI code is loosely coupled to business logic.

Now, that being said let's pick your questions one by one:

What job does it do?

I have added the details above. Hope it clears the usage of commands.

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Is it usable for all commands in my form?

Some controls exposed Command DependencyProperty like Button, MenuItem etc. which have some default event registered to it. For Button it's Click event. So, if you bind ICommand declared in ViewModel with Button's Command DP, it will be invoked whenever button is clicked on.

For other events, you can bind using Interactivity triggers. Refer to the sample here how to use them to bind to ICommand in ViewModel.

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How do I make the button disable when (a) certain text box(es) are not filled in?

The link you posted doesn't provide complete implementation of RelayCommand. It lacks the overloaded constructor to set CanExecute predicate which plays a key role in enabling/disabling the UI control to which your command is bound to.

Bound TextBoxes with some properties in ViewModel and in CanExecute delegate returns false if any of the bound properties are null or empty which automatically disabled the control to which command is bound to.

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Full implementation of RelayCommand:

public class RelayCommand<T> : ICommand
{
    #region Fields

    readonly Action<T> _execute = null;
    readonly Predicate<T> _canExecute = null;

    #endregion

    #region Constructors

    /// <summary>
    /// Initializes a new instance of <see cref="DelegateCommand{T}"/>.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="execute">Delegate to execute when Execute is called on the command.  This can be null to just hook up a CanExecute delegate.</param>
    /// <remarks><seealso cref="CanExecute"/> will always return true.</remarks>
    public RelayCommand(Action<T> execute)
        : this(execute, null)
    {
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Creates a new command.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="execute">The execution logic.</param>
    /// <param name="canExecute">The execution status logic.</param>
    public RelayCommand(Action<T> execute, Predicate<T> canExecute)
    {
        if (execute == null)
            throw new ArgumentNullException("execute");

        _execute = execute;
        _canExecute = canExecute;
    }

    #endregion

    #region ICommand Members

    ///<summary>
    ///Defines the method that determines whether the command can execute in its current state.
    ///</summary>
    ///<param name="parameter">Data used by the command.  If the command does not require data to be passed, this object can be set to null.</param>
    ///<returns>
    ///true if this command can be executed; otherwise, false.
    ///</returns>
    public bool CanExecute(object parameter)
    {
        return _canExecute == null || _canExecute((T)parameter);
    }

    ///<summary>
    ///Occurs when changes occur that affect whether or not the command should execute.
    ///</summary>
    public event EventHandler CanExecuteChanged
    {
        add { CommandManager.RequerySuggested += value; }
        remove { CommandManager.RequerySuggested -= value; }
    }

    ///<summary>
    ///Defines the method to be called when the command is invoked.
    ///</summary>
    ///<param name="parameter">Data used by the command. If the command does not require data to be passed, this object can be set to <see langword="null" />.</param>
    public void Execute(object parameter)
    {
        _execute((T)parameter);
    }

    #endregion
}

Answer 2

The benefit of using relay command is that you can bind commands directly to the ViewModels. By using commands in such a way you avoid writing code in the views codebehind.

When using relay commands, you will have to provide two methods. The first one provides a value whether the command can be executed (e.g. "CanExecuteSave"), while the other one will be responsible for executing the command ("ExecuteSave").