Dock

Creating a Custom Dock.Model Implementation

Dock ships with a set of factory libraries that adapt the base model to various MVVM frameworks. Dock.Model.Avalonia provides a plain Avalonia version, Dock.Model.Mvvm adds INotifyPropertyChanged helpers and Dock.Model.ReactiveUI wraps the same API with ReactiveUI types. You can create your own implementation when these do not fit your application or you wish to integrate Dock with another framework.

Project setup

  1. Create a new class library and add a reference to Dock.Model.
  2. Implement the interfaces from Dock.Model.Core and Dock.Model.Controls using the base classes that match your framework. The existing implementations in the repository are good starting points.
  3. Derive a Factory from Dock.Model.FactoryBase and override the creation methods (CreateRootDock, CreateToolDock, CreateDocumentDock and so on) to return your custom view models.
  4. Provide command and property change logic that matches your MVVM framework. For example, you might expose ICommand objects or ReactiveUI commands.

A minimal dockable using INotifyPropertyChanged might look like this:

public class MyDockable : DockableBase, INotifyPropertyChanged
{
    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler? PropertyChanged;

    protected void OnPropertyChanged([CallerMemberName] string? name = null) =>
        PropertyChanged?.Invoke(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(name));
}

Your factory can then create instances of MyDockable and initialize them using InitLayout just like the built‑in MVVM and ReactiveUI versions. The interfaces and helper methods in FactoryBase remain the same regardless of the underlying framework.

Reusing existing code

The easiest way to start is to copy the sources of Dock.Model.Mvvm or Dock.Model.ReactiveUI and replace the command and property change types with those from your own framework. Only a handful of classes need to be adjusted, mainly the Dockable bases and the Factory implementation.

Conclusion

Custom implementations let you integrate Dock with any MVVM pattern while keeping the docking logic intact. Follow the structure of the provided models and adapt the base classes to match your chosen framework.

For an overview of all guides see the documentation index.

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