Question

I have a View that displays a DataGrid which is bound to an ObservableCollection in the ViewModel. For the sake of discussion, let’s say we have a Team View containing a Team DataGrid, in which each row represents a Player.

My question is about what data type I should use to represent the players in my Team collection. Is it a good idea for the items in the collection to be ViewModels themselves? In this case, my Team View would be associated with a single Team ViewModel as well as any number of Player ViewModels (in the Team collection).

Does having multiple ViewModels associated with a single View violate any design guidelines for MVVM , and is there a preferred way of implementing this scenario?

Thanks!

Answer 1

No that is fine; each object should be a ViewModel in its own right. It makes for cleaner code, nicer interactions, and remember, if it works well then it’s correct (even if it violates guidelines).

I would do it exactly the way you are prescribing. I’d bind my grid to a Team, which would have an ObservableCollection<Player>, where Player is another ViewModel-type class. Each row item would get the Player as its DataContext and so you’re still binding to ViewModel properties as you’d expect: and Player can still have public properties for ICommands (likely RelayCommands) for manipulation!

Hope that helps!