Dialog interaction requests using IObservable - system.reactive

Question

I'm using reactive programming to build an MVVM app and am trying to figure out how my view model can raise a question and wait for a dialog to prompt the user for an answer.
For example, when the user clicks a Rename button I want a dialog to pop up that allows the user to change the text. My approach is for the view model to expose an IObservable<string> property. Code-behind in the View listens for emitted values and might display a UWP ContentDialog. If the user changes the text and clicks OK, code in that dialog would call ReportResult(string newText) on view model. I've got some code below to show how it works. Two questions:
Is this a reasonable approach for collecting information from the user?
Also, I've got two subtly different approaches for building this and don't know which is better.
interface IServiceRequest<TSource, TResult> : ISubject<TResult, TSource> { }
// Requests for information are just 'passed through' to listeners, if any.
class ServiceRequestA<TSource, TResult> : IServiceRequest<TSource, TResult>
{
IObservable<TSource> _requests;
Subject<TResult> _results = new Subject<TResult>();
public ServiceRequestA(IObservable<TSource> requests)
{
_requests = requests;
}
public IObservable<TResult> Results => _results;
public void OnCompleted() => _results.OnCompleted();
public void OnError(Exception error) => _results.OnError(error);
public void OnNext(TResult value) => _results.OnNext(value);
public IDisposable Subscribe(IObserver<TSource> observer) => _requests.Subscribe(observer);
}
// Requests for information are 'parked' inside the class even if there are no listeners
// This happens when InitiateRequest is called. Alternately, this class could implement
// IObserver<TSource>.
class ServiceRequestB<TSource, TResult> : IServiceRequest<TSource, TResult>
{
Subject<TSource> _requests = new Subject<TSource>();
Subject<TResult> _results = new Subject<TResult>();
public void InitiateRequest(TSource request) => _requests.OnNext(request);
public IObservable<TResult> Results => _results;
public void OnCompleted() => _results.OnCompleted();
public void OnError(Exception error) => _results.OnError(error);
public void OnNext(TResult value) => _results.OnNext(value);
public IDisposable Subscribe(IObserver<TSource> observer) => _requests.Subscribe(observer);
}
class MyViewModel
{
ServiceRequestA<string, int> _serviceA;
ServiceRequestB<string, int> _serviceB;
public MyViewModel()
{
IObservable<string> _words = new string[] { "apple", "banana" }.ToObservable();
_serviceA = new ServiceRequestA<string, int>(_words);
_serviceA
.Results
.Subscribe(i => Console.WriteLine($"The word is {i} characters long."));
WordSizeServiceRequest = _serviceA;
// Alternate approach using the other service implementation
_serviceB = new ServiceRequestB<string, int>();
IDisposable sub = _words.Subscribe(i => _serviceB.InitiateRequest(i)); // should dispose later
_serviceB
.Results
.Subscribe(i => Console.WriteLine($"The word is {i} characters long."));
WordSizeServiceRequest = _serviceB;
}
public IServiceRequest<string, int> WordSizeServiceRequest { get; set; }
// Code outside the view model, probably in the View code-behind, would do this:
// WordSizeServiceRequest.Select(w => w.Length).Subscribe(WordSizeServiceRequest);
}
Based on comments from Lee Campbell, here is a different approach. Maybe he'll like it better? I'm actually not sure how to build the IRenameDialog. Before it was just a bit of code-behind in the View.
public interface IRenameDialog
{
void StartRenameProcess(string original);
IObservable<string> CommitResult { get; }
}
public class SomeViewModel
{
ObservableCommand _rename = new ObservableCommand();
BehaviorSubject<string> _name = new BehaviorSubject<string>("");
public SomeViewModel(IRenameDialog renameDialog,string originalName)
{
_name.OnNext(originalName);
_rename = new ObservableCommand();
var whenClickRenameDisplayDialog =
_rename
.WithLatestFrom(_name, (_, n) => n)
.Subscribe(n => renameDialog.StartRenameProcess(n));
var whenRenameCompletesPrintIt =
renameDialog
.CommitResult
.Subscribe(n =>
{
_name.OnNext(n);
Console.WriteLine($"The new name is {n}");
};
var behaviors = new CompositeDisposable(whenClickRenameDisplayDialog, whenRenameCompletesPrintIt);
}
public ICommand RenameCommand => _rename;
}

Answer 1

Hmm.
The first block of code looks like a re-implementation of IObservable<T>, actually I think event worse ISubject<T>, so that raises alarm bells.
Then the MyViewModel class does other things like pass IObservable<string> as a parameter (Why?), create subscriptions (side effects) in the constructor, and expose a Service as a public property. You also metion having code in your view code behind, which is often a code-smell in MVVM too.
I would suggest reading up on MVVM (solved problem for 10yrs) and havnig a look at how other Client applications use Rx/Reactive programming with MVVM (solved problem for ~6yrs)

Answer 2

Lee shamed me into coming up with a better solution. The first and best turned out to be very simple. I pass into the constructor one of these:
public interface IConfirmationDialog
{
Task<bool> Show(string message);
}
Inside my view model, I can do something like this...
IConfirmationDialog dialog = null; // provided by constructor
_deleteCommand.Subscribe(async _ =>
{
var result = await dialog.Show("Want to delete?");
if (result==true)
{
// delete the file
}
});
Building a ConfirmationDialog wasn't hard. I just create one of these in the part of my code that creates view models and assigns them to views.
public class ConfirmationDialogHandler : IConfirmationDialog
{
public async Task<bool> Show(string message)
{
var dialog = new ConfirmationDialog(); // Is subclass of ContentDialog
dialog.Message = message;
var result = await dialog.ShowAsync();
return (result == ContentDialogResult.Primary);
}
}
So the solution above is pretty clean; dependencies my view model needs are provided in the constructor. Another approach similar to what Prism and ReactiveUI do is one where the ViewModel is constructed without the dependency it needs. Instead there is a bit of code-behind in the view to fill in that dependency. I don't need to have multiple handlers, so I just have this:
public interface IInteractionHandler<TInput, TOutput>
{
void SetHandler(Func<TInput, TOutput> handler);
void RemoveHandler();
}
public class InteractionBroker<TInput, TOutput> : IInteractionHandler<TInput, TOutput>
{
Func<TInput, TOutput> _handler;
public TOutput GetResponse(TInput input)
{
if (_handler == null) throw new InvalidOperationException("No handler has been defined.");
return _handler(input);
}
public void RemoveHandler() => _handler = null;
public void SetHandler(Func<TInput, TOutput> handler) => _handler = handler ?? throw new ArgumentNullException();
}
And then my ViewModel exposes a property like this:
public IInteractionHandler<string,Task<bool>> Delete { get; }
And handles the delete command like this:
_deleteCommand.Subscribe(async _ =>
{
bool shouldDelete = await _deleteInteractionBroker.GetResponse("some file name");
if (shouldDelete)
{
// delete the file
}
});