Simple Commanding for Windows Forms

This repository introduces command pattern similar to WPF into Windows Forms.

Why?

WPF has its implementation of command pattern, which is a powerful way to manage program logic. However, due to design decisions, Windows Forms does not naturally support this. There are projects like Prism reimplemented it for WPF-ish environments. Some commercial libraries have their own implementation, for example WinForms MVVM of DevExpress. But still, there is no general, open-sourced version for Windows Forms. Therefore, here I introduce a WPF-like commanding for Windows Forms.

Functionalities

• ICommand, CommandBinding and ICommandSource similar to what they are in WPF.
• Basic command types: DelegateCommand, RoutedCommand (limited) and RoutedUICommand (limited).
• Operations: execute, revert
• Usability management
• RoutedUICommand can bind to common controls:
  • Button, CheckBox, RadioButton
  • MenuItem
  • ToolStripButton, ToolStripSplitButton, ToolStripOverflowButton
  • ToolStripMenuItem

Example

There is example can be found at Form1.cs. Here is a glance of a part of it:

private void InitializeCommands() {
    var binding = new CommandBinding(_command1);

    binding.Executed += (s, e) => {
        var paramStr = e.Parameter == null ? "(null)" : e.Parameter.ToString();
        MessageBox.Show($"This is command 1.{Environment.NewLine}Command parameter: {paramStr}");
    };

    binding.QueryCanExecute += (s, e) => {
        e.CanExecute = _command1Enabled;
    };

    btnInvoke1.CreateCommandSourceBuilder().WithCommandBinding(binding).Build();
    btnInvoke1Param.CreateCommandSourceBuilder().WithCommandBinding(binding).WithCommandParameter(1234).Build();
    mnuFileInvoke1.CreateCommandSourceBuilder().WithCommandBinding(binding).Build();
}

private readonly ICommand _command1 = new RoutedUICommand("Ctrl+1");
private bool _command1Enabled = true;

License

MIT