BBCodeBlock navigation features

The BBCodeBlock control is used for simple rich text formatting and includes support for link navigation. Link navigation is performed by an instance of ILinkNavigator assigned to the BBCodeBlock.LinkNavigator property. The default value is an instance of DefaultLinkNavigator. DefaultLinkNavigator supports navigation to external urls, internal pages and command execution.

External navigation

An absolute url with scheme http, https and mailto is opened in the default browser when clicked.

<mui:BBCodeBlock BBCode="[url=http://www.google.com]go to google[/url]" />

Internal navigation

Relative urls are by default opened in the same ModernFrame instance that is hosting the BBCodeBlock defining the link. Selecting the following link will cause the ModernFrame to load the XAML page /Pages/MyPage.xaml.

<mui:BBCodeBlock BBCode="[url=/Pages/MyPage.xaml]go to my page[/url]" />

When navigating to an internal page, you can specify the target frame. The target frame is set by appending a '|' character to the url followed by the frame name. The following target names are supported:

• _self, loads the page in the same frame where the BBCodeBlock resides. This effectively replaces the current page.
• _parent, load the page in the parent frame
• _top, loads the page in the top most frame found in the application. This is usually the ModernFrame instance defined in the ModernWindow template.
• (name): loads the page in the frame having specified name

The following link loads the XAML page in the top-most frame.

<mui:BBCodeBlock BBCode="[url=/Pages/MyPage.xaml|_top]go to my page[/url]" />

Executing commands

BBCodeBlock links can also be used to trigger the execution of an ICommand instance. To add support for command links, the command need to be registered with the ILinkNavigator instance associated with the BBCodeBlock. The ILinkNavigator interface includes a Commands property of type CommandCollection that is used to map a command to a uri.

Links that refer to registered commands are automatically enabled and disabled based on the CanExecute state of the ICommand.

The following XAML snippet registers a custom command and defines a link that executes the command when clicked.

<mui:BBCodeBlock BBCode="[url=cmd://mycommand]execute my command[/url]">
  <mui:BBCodeBlock.LinkNavigator>
    <mui:DefaultLinkNavigator>
      <mui:DefaultLinkNavigator.Commands>
        <sample:MyCommand x:Key="cmd://mycommand" />
      </mui:DefaultLinkNavigator.Commands>
    </mui:DefaultLinkNavigator>
  </mui:BBCodeBlock.LinkNavigator>
</mui:BBCodeBlock>

You can supply a command parameter by appending a '|' character and adding a parameter value. Please note that the parameter value may not contain whitespace characters and should be url encoded.

The following link executes a custom command while providing the command parameter string value 'my parameter';

<mui:BBCodeBlock BBCode="[url=cmd://mycommand|my%20parameter]execute my command[/url]" />