Automatic binding to some service properties in Catel with Fody

Question

Assuming there is some service:

public interface IDeviceManagerService
{
    ISomeDeviceApi Api { get; }
}

It's purpose is to monitor external environment (USB, network, etc.), instantiate device API when the device detected and make property null when the device is no longer available.

Supposing there is a view model with this service injected, I would like to have change notifications for IDeviceManagerService.Api to make things like below possible (for example, having the button which is only active when the device API is available).

private Boolean OnSomeCommandCanExecute()
{
    return _deviceManagerService.Api != null;
}

I wonder if there is a clean way to make this work without manual change notifications handling (with Catel.Fody or PropertyChanged.Fody). So far I have managed to get working result by making service implementation derived from ModelBase, registering it's injected instance as a [Model] inside the view model and exposing it's Api property using [ViewModelToModel] attribute, but this is very dirty way.

Is there some common approach or It would be better to go with implementing INotifyPropertyChanged and use notifications wrapper instead?

Answer 1

In most approaches, services don't implement INotifyPropertyChanged (they are not models), so my recommendation is to add manual events:

public interface IDeviceManagerService
{
    ISomeDeviceApi Api { get; }

    event EventHandler<DeviceApiEventArgs> ApiChanged;
}

This way you can deal with the stuff you are interested in (subscribe in InitializeAsync, unsubscribe in CloseAsync).