How to convert string to ViewModel object?

[jsimunac01]

I've got a reporting dashboard. When the user clicks a button, it opens the correct viewmodel and displays the view. So button1 open VM1ViewModel, button2 opens VM2ViewModel, etc. This means that all possible viewmodels are hard coded in the program. I would like to store the viewmodel names in the database (with the rest of the user interface information). That is stored as a string. So for button1 I would pass "VM1ViewModel" as string. Now I need to open it with WindowManager.ShowWindow(new VM1ViewModel). If I just type the name, no problem. But I can't use the string. I've tried converting to a Screen object, but I can't find any way to convert from a string to Screen. Is this even possible? If so, how would I go about it. Google is being singularly unhelpful on this one. Thanks in advance.

[canton7]

Such use of strings instead of types, or "stringy-typed", is usually discouraged - you lose any compile-time help the compiler can give you, and errors will appear at runtime instead.

That said, you could use a dictionary to map between the string and the type, or use Type.GetType or Assembly.GetType to get the type for a fully-qualified type name, and Activator.CreateInstance to instantiate it.

[jsimunac01]

Thanks - I'll play with that and see how it works. I'm just trying to get rid of huge If or Switch statements to wade through all the possible viewmodels.

[jsimunac01]

I should probably ask (to save myself a lot of trial and error), what type should I use for the ViewModel in the dictionary? Not Screen (I already tried that).