Caliburn Micro: how to navigate in Windows phone silverlight

Question

i am trying to use Caliburn Micro in my windows phone 7 project. But i got a nullreferenceexception when navigate the page.

namespace Caliburn.Micro.HelloWP7 {
    public class MainPageViewModel {
        readonly INavigationService navigationService;

        public MainPageViewModel(INavigationService navigationService) {
            this.navigationService = navigationService;
        }

        public void GotoPageTwo() {
            /*navigationService.UriFor<PivotPageViewModel>()
                .WithParam(x => x.NumberOfTabs, 5)
                .Navigate();*/
            navigationService.UriFor<Page1ViewModel>().Navigate();
        }
    }
}

namespace Caliburn.Micro.HelloWP7
{
    public class Page1ViewModel
    {
         readonly INavigationService navigationService;

         public Page1ViewModel(INavigationService navigationService)
         {
            this.navigationService = navigationService;
        }
    }
}

can anyone tell me what's the problem of my code? thanks in advance.

here is bootstrapper:

public class ScheduleBootstrapper : PhoneBootstrapper
{
    PhoneContainer container;

    protected override void Configure()
    {
        container = new PhoneContainer(RootFrame);

        container.RegisterPhoneServices();
        container.PerRequest<MainPageViewModel>();
        container.PerRequest<MainContentViewModel>();
        container.PerRequest<Page1ViewModel>();
        AddCustomConventions();
    }

    static void AddCustomConventions()
    {
        ConventionManager.AddElementConvention<Pivot>(Pivot.ItemsSourceProperty, "SelectedItem", "SelectionChanged").ApplyBinding =
            (viewModelType, path, property, element, convention) =>
            {
                if (ConventionManager
                    .GetElementConvention(typeof(ItemsControl))
                    .ApplyBinding(viewModelType, path, property, element, convention))
                {
                    ConventionManager
                        .ConfigureSelectedItem(element, Pivot.SelectedItemProperty, viewModelType, path);
                    ConventionManager
                        .ApplyHeaderTemplate(element, Pivot.HeaderTemplateProperty, viewModelType);
                    return true;
                }

                return false;
            };

        ConventionManager.AddElementConvention<Panorama>(Panorama.ItemsSourceProperty, "SelectedItem", "SelectionChanged").ApplyBinding =
            (viewModelType, path, property, element, convention) =>
            {
                if (ConventionManager
                    .GetElementConvention(typeof(ItemsControl))
                    .ApplyBinding(viewModelType, path, property, element, convention))
                {
                    ConventionManager
                        .ConfigureSelectedItem(element, Panorama.SelectedItemProperty, viewModelType, path);
                    ConventionManager
                        .ApplyHeaderTemplate(element, Panorama.HeaderTemplateProperty, viewModelType);
                    return true;
                }

                return false;
            };
    }

    protected override object GetInstance(Type service, string key)
    {
        return container.GetInstance(service, key);
    }

    protected override IEnumerable<object> GetAllInstances(Type service)
    {
        return container.GetAllInstances(service);
    }

    protected override void BuildUp(object instance)
    {
        container.BuildUp(instance);
    }
}

Answer 1

I had this too, and tracked it down as follows:

As you know, Caliburn.Micro uses convention-over-configuration to locate Views for ViewModels, and vice-versa, which means we need to follow the conventions. My mistake was to have the namespace's inconsistent for the View and ViewModel

In my case, I had

MyWP7App.DetailsViewModel, and

MyWP7App.Views.DetailsView

--> I renamed the VM's namespace to be MyWP7App.ViewModels.DetailsViewModel, and it worked out fine. I think I could have moved the view into MyWP7App.DetailsView for a good result, too...

---

Under the covers

the call to Navigate() invokes DeterminePageName() which, in turn, invokes ViewLocator.LocateTypeForModelType

This, like the rest of CM is overridable, but the default implementation looks like this:

public static Func<Type, DependencyObject, object, Type> LocateTypeForModelType = (modelType, displayLocation, context) => {
    var viewTypeName = modelType.FullName.Substring(
        0,
        modelType.FullName.IndexOf("`") < 0
            ? modelType.FullName.Length
            : modelType.FullName.IndexOf("`")
        );

    Func<string, string> getReplaceString;
    if (context == null) {
        getReplaceString = r => { return r; };
    }
    else {
        getReplaceString = r => {
            return Regex.Replace(r, Regex.IsMatch(r, "Page$") ? "Page$" : "View$", ContextSeparator + context);
        };
    }

    var viewTypeList = NameTransformer.Transform(viewTypeName, getReplaceString);
    var viewType = (from assembly in AssemblySource.Instance
                    from type in assembly.GetExportedTypes()
                    where viewTypeList.Contains(type.FullName)
                    select type).FirstOrDefault();

    return viewType;
};

If you follow the debugger through, you end up with a collection viewTypeList that contains MyWP7App.DetailsView, and a type whose full name is MyWP7App.Views.DetailsView, and the viewType returned is therefore null... this is the cause of the NullReferenceException.

I'm 99% sure the NameTransformer.Transform call will perform a pattern-match and transform the ViewModels in the namespace of the VM to Views in the namespace of the View it's trying to locate...