c# - WPF MVVM Code Behind

Question

I try to avoid code behind in views, within my WPF MVVM project.

However I have some things that are very specific to the view. For example when a control gets focus I want the full text to be highlighted (even if a user clicks into the text box).

Here I have a choice to handle this in the view model (which would then need to know about the view, which I want to avoid).

I also have some other code like that does things to the UI when the user presses up down left or right on the keyboard (and they only make changes to the view, not the model or viewmodel) and again I'm thinking the best place for these is in the code behind of the view.

So I'm asking if the code only affects the view (e.g. things like cursor movement, selecting all text in a text box etc..., and not the model or view model, is it okay to put it in code behind, rather than elsewhere.

Wondering what is best practise here, or if anyone else has a better suggestion where to put this code.

Answer 1

So I'm asking if the code only affects the view (e.g. things like cursor movement, selecting all text in a text box etc..., and not the model or view model, is it okay to put it in code behind, rather than elsewhere.

Not only it is OK, but it is strongly encouraged. MVVM is not here for you to write thousands of ugly lines of code in ViewModels, it's here to make the code testable and to introduce a separation of concerns.

If it's purely related to the view (your "focus" example is a perfect example), then just write it in the code behind.