CMPT 212 Object-Oriented Applications Design in C++ Fall 1997

Mode/View/Controller Architecture

• The model/view/controller (MVC) architecture is a way of designing a GUI application.

• The data which a program uses can be displayed in various ways.
  • Spreadsheet data can be displayed in a table or in a graph.
  • A word processor may have the same document open in more than one window.

• The application stores the data in some format (the model) but has different ways of displaying it (the views).

• The controller portion of the application has two purposes:
  1. coordinates the user's interaction with views to update the model,
  2. ensures that the views show the latest updates of the model.

• MVC architecture:

• We can use callback functions to update the views then the model changes.
  • Each view registers a callback function with the controller.

  • When the model is changed, the controller will call each callback function so that the views are updated.

• The MVC architecture is useful in other types of applications, but is very appropriate for GUI applications.

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