C#•17mo ago

❔ Attributes for commands: implementing "feature search"

Background: So I have worked on a simple text editor app and have a MainViewModel full of commands that I bind to menu items. I wanted to see if I can create something like Feature Search in Visual Studio or think command palette like vscode if you will. That's when I stumbled upon this amazing concept called attributes. I want to see if this is a good way to achieve what I want. I create an attribute like this

[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Property)]
public class CommandInfoAttribute : Attribute
{
    public string Description { get; }

    public CommandInfoAttribute(string description)
    {
        Description = description;
    }
}

[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Property)]
public class CommandInfoAttribute : Attribute
{
    public string Description { get; }

    public CommandInfoAttribute(string description)
    {
        Description = description;
    }
}

and in my MainViewModel I add this to my commands:

[RelayCommand]
[property: CommandInfo("New File")]
private async Task NewFileAsync()
{
    ...
}

[RelayCommand]
[property: CommandInfo("New File")]
private async Task NewFileAsync()
{
    ...
}

and then, using reflection, I would find all public IRelayCommands defined in my mainviewmodel and get their descriptions along with any other attributes, for example what MenuItem they are defined for ("File > New File"). That data I can feed to my search control that will display a list of commands and once clicked used the .Execute() method of said command. Perhaps I can create a model that takes my MainViewModel and returns this command information (haven't thought this one completely through). I was wondering if this is this best or even a good way to go on about this. I wanted to achieve this with minimal changes to my existing codebase and this is what I could come up with.

2 Replies

Tvde1•17mo ago

I would say attributes like this is a fine way 👍 it means to add a new command, you just make a new class and put on the right attributes, you don't have to update any other files

Accord•17mo ago

Was this issue resolved? If so, run /close - otherwise I will mark this as stale and this post will be archived until there is new activity.

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❔ Attributes for commands: implementing "feature search"