Dynamically Adding Different Views Using MVP

Question

First off let me say this is my first attempt into trying MVP. I am going for the Passive View approach as I want to completely decouple the Views from the Model.

I have read up on MVP by reading the following articles among others

Derek Greer
http://aspiringcraftsman.com/2007/08/25/interactive-application-architecture/

Todd Snyder
http://blogs.infragistics.com/blogs/todd_snyder/archive/2007/10/17/mvc-or-mvp-pattern-whats-the-difference.aspx

My application is going to have 4 Views that are custom controls in which each implement a different interface to interact with the Presenter. Now this is not a problem for 3 of the views as the controls are static and never change.

My problem comes along where on the 4th View I need to change the control/View that is displayed based on events triggered from View 1.

So for example lets say View 1 is a list of people who can be from either an employee or a customer. Now depending on who is selected you can modify different parameters depending on the type of person selected. The problem is that View 4 needs to dynamically change the editing control based on what is selected. Keep in mind not only the properties will be different but how they are edited as well. Also each editing control is going to fire different events for property changes.

So how does my Presenter know how to manage interaction with the Model, when depending on whether an employee or customer is selected there is a different editor that implements a different View interface?

I hope that was clear. Any help is greatly appreciated. I have searched all over and all examples show a concrete relationship between the View and Presenter whereas mine needs to be extremely flexible.

My goal here is to keep the editing controls on the 4th View so flexible that I could for example add editing controls/Views for aliens or dogs or whatever else I might add to View1 to be selected.

Thanks

Answer 1

You can create a top-level presenter that listens for selection events and changes the editing control by instantiating different MVP triads based on what is selected. Typically in MVP your presenters manage all the construction/dependencies.

Answer 2

I personally don't like having a 'Master Presenter' per se. I do build composite presenters: e.g. View can contain one of several views, so I build a Presenter for the master view, which sends commands (messages, events, whatever) to a specific child presenter (I don't expose any View outside it's owning Presenter).

Don't over-complicate things ...use a different View for each responsibility. Views are cheap.