CSLA .NET version 3.8.0 alpha 3 is now available.

• Windows download
• Silverlight download

The primary focus of version 3.8 is to enable more seamless support for the MVVM design pattern in Silverlight and WPF. The alpha 3 release brings the features I’ve been implementing in Silverlight into WPF.

Also, the samples downloads now include my MVVM experimental applications. I suppose you can call these samples, but they are really the apps I’m using to try out different ideas – so they aren’t what I’d consider a “full sample”. Still, you can see how the various new features work, and how the MVVM features allow creation of at least a basic CRUD UI (with some navigation) with no code-behind any XAML.

Please note that version 3.8 requires System.Windows.Interactivity.dll to build. This assembly is installed with Expression Blend 3, or the Blend 3 SDK. You must install at least the SDK before you can build CSLA .NET 3.8.0.

The new features (now in Silverlight and WPF) include:

• New ViewModelBase and ViewModel base classes to simplify the creation of view model types in your application. ViewModelBase provides protected methods to simplify interaction with business object types, and ViewModel is an example subclass that exposes public methods for use by InvokeMethod or Execute
• CslaDataProvider enhancements to allow “chaining” of data providers (so a child data provider’s ObjectInstance property can be bound to a property from a parent data provider’s business object)
• InvokeMethod enhancements to handle essentially any UI control event, and to invoke either data provider or view model methods, including passing parameter values from data bound sources in the UI. Additionally, InvokeMethod is now fully bindable which simplifies (but changes) the XAML needed to use the control
• Execute trigger action, which is somewhat like InvokeMethod, but is an action used within a System.Windows.Interactivity trigger handler. The trigger action model imposes some limitations on data binding, so Execute isn’t quite as powerful as InvokeMethod, but it is more compatible with the Blend 3 designer model
• PropertyStatus enhancements so you can bind your UI control’s properties to properties on PropertyStatus to control its visual state. This is instead of having PropertyStatus try to directly manipulate the visual state of the UI control. Additionally, PropertyStatus is now fully bindable which simplifies (but changes) the XAML needed to use the control
• MobileFormatter now uses binary XML by default to help improve performance

Please give these new features a try and let me know your thoughts on the forum.