ObservableRecipient

The ObservableRecipient type is a base class for observable objects that also acts as recipients for messages. This class is an extension of ObservableObject which also provides built-in support to use the IMessenger type.

Platform APIs: ObservableRecipient, ObservableObject, IMessenger, WeakReferenceMessenger, IRecipient<TMessage>, PropertyChangedMessage<T>

How it works

The ObservableRecipient type is meant to be used as a base for viewmodels that also use the IMessenger features, as it provides built-in support for it. In particular:

• It has both a parameterless constructor and one that takes an IMessenger instance, to be used with dependency injection. It also exposes a Messenger property that can be used to send and receive messages in the viewmodel. If the parameterless constructor is used, the WeakReferenceMessenger.Default instance will be assigned to the Messenger property.
• It exposes an IsActive property to activate/deactivate the viewmodel. In this context, to "activate" means that a given viewmodel is marked as being in use, such that eg. it will start listening for registered messages, perform other setup operations, etc. There are two related methods, OnActivated and OnDeactivated, that are invoked when the property changes value. By default, OnDeactivated automatically unregisters the current instance from all registered messages. For best results and to avoid memory leaks, it's recommended to use OnActivated to register to messages, and to use OnDeactivated to do cleanup operations. This pattern allows a viewmodel to be enabled/disabled multiple times, while being safe to collect without the risk of memory leaks every time it's deactivated. By default, OnActivated will automatically register all the message handlers defined through the IRecipient<TMessage> interface.
• It exposes a Broadcast<T>(T, T, string) method which sends a PropertyChangedMessage<T> message through the IMessenger instance available from the Messenger property. This can be used to easily broadcast changes in the properties of a viewmodel without having to manually retrieve a Messenger instance to use. This method is used by the overload of the various SetProperty methods, which have an additional bool broadcast property to indicate whether or not to also send a message.

Here's an example of a viewmodel that receives LoggedInUserRequestMessage messages when active:

public class MyViewModel : ObservableRecipient, IRecipient<LoggedInUserRequestMessage>
{
    public void Receive(LoggedInUserRequestMessage message)
    {
        // Handle the message here
    }
}

In the example above, OnActivated automatically registers the instance as a recipient for LoggedInUserRequestMessage messages, using that method as the action to invoke. Using the IRecipient<TMessage> interface is not mandatory, and the registration can also be done manually (even using just an inline lambda expression):

public class MyViewModel : ObservableRecipient
{
    protected override void OnActivated()
    {
        // Using a method group...
        Messenger.Register<MyViewModel, LoggedInUserRequestMessage>(this, (r, m) => r.Receive(m));

        // ...or a lambda expression
        Messenger.Register<MyViewModel, LoggedInUserRequestMessage>(this, (r, m) =>
        {
            // Handle the message here
        });
    }

    private void Receive(LoggedInUserRequestMessage message)
    {
        // Handle the message here
    }
}

Examples

• Check out the sample app (for multiple UI frameworks) to see the MVVM Toolkit in action.
• You can also find more examples in the unit tests.