IoC/DI Containers (OWIN)

The DotvvmStartup class implements IDotvvmServiceConfigurator interface with the following method:

public void ConfigureServices(IDotvvmServiceCollection services)
{
    services.Services.AddSingleton(...);
}

In this method, you can register any services in the IServiceCollection.

You can register custom services using options.Services.AddTransient, options.Services.AddSingleton or options.Services.AddScoped.

One of the services that is already present in the collection, is the viewmodel loader represented by the IViewModelLoader interface. This class is responsible for locating of the class specified by the @viewModel directive in the page and creating an instance of the viewmodel.

DotVVM uses the DefaultViewModelLoader class which locates the class and calls its default constructor. If you need to plug a dependency injection container in, you can create a class that inherits DefaultViewModelLoader and override the CreateViewModelInstance.

Custom ViewModelLoader for Castle Windsor

Castle Windsor is one of the favorite IoC/DI containers in .NET. Here is how to create the viewmodel loader using this container. Notice that we call container.Resolve in the CreateViewModelInstance and container.Release in the DisposeViewModel.

using System;
using Castle.Windsor;
using DotVVM.Framework.ViewModel.Serialization;

namespace DotvvmDemo.Web
{
    public class WindsorViewModelLoader : DefaultViewModelLoader
    {
        private readonly WindsorContainer container;

        public WindsorViewModelLoader(WindsorContainer container)
        {
            this.container = container;
        }

        protected override object CreateViewModelInstance(Type viewModelType, IDotvvmRequestContext context)
        {
            return container.Resolve(viewModelType);
        }

        public override void DisposeViewModel(object instance)
        {
            container.Release(instance);
            base.DisposeViewModel(instance);
        }
    }
}

If you use another container, the implementation will be very similar. Don't forget to tell the container to release the instances in the DisposeViewModel method. This method is called when the HTTP request ends and DotVVM no longer needs the viewmodel object.

Some containers do this by initiating a "scope" in the CreateViewModelInstance method and disposing the scope in the DisposeViewModel method.

Registering Custom ViewModelLoader

The last thing is to replace the default viewmodel loader with the one you have just created. We should do this in the DotvvmStartup.cs class:

public void ConfigureServices(IDotvvmServiceCollection services)
{
    services.Services.AddSingleton<IViewModelLoader>(serviceProvider => new WindsorViewModelLoader(container));
}

Static Command Services

Since registering all components in IServiceCollection on DotVVM startup can be problemmatic, you might use a custom IStaticCommandServiceLoader to have your service instances resolved directly from your container.

using System;
using Castle.Windsor;
using DotVVM.Framework.ViewModel.Serialization;

namespace DotvvmDemo.Web
{
    public class WindsorStaticCommandServiceLoader : DefaultStaticCommandServiceLoader
    {
        private readonly WindsorContainer container;

        public WindsorStaticCommandServiceLoader(WindsorContainer container)
        {
            this.container = container;
        }

        public override object GetStaticCommandService(Type serviceType, IDotvvmRequestContext context)
        {
            return container.Resolve(serviceType);
        }

    }
}

To register the alternative loader, replace the default one using the following code in DotvvmStartup.cs:

public void ConfigureServices(IDotvvmServiceCollection services)
{
    services.Services.AddSingleton<IStaticCommandServiceLoader>(serviceProvider => new WindsorStaticCommandServiceLoader(container));
}