and thanks in advance for the guidance. I'm new to MVVM, and I've been learning via articles. I think I've gotten pretty far, but there's one thing that seems to escape me. How do I (not using code in the code behind) automatically bind to the view I want? As I understand it, if done correctly, this is how the pattern should work. I can make this all happen using code behind in the main window xaml, and I have even created a resource dictionary correctly (as I can access it in the immediate window.) I just can't get to that next step of 'automation.' It could be my design, as I new to this pattern I'm totally amenable to the possibility that I've done this all wrong. Here's what I have...

I have a main window. It's a grid with 3 rows. The top row is a menu. The bottom row is a status bar. The middle is a stack panel where the content is dynamically loaded based on the menu selection.

I have 2 views that I am using to fill this stack panel. One has nothing more than a styled textbox in it (Help & About.) The other is itself a composite view: a search panel, a results grid and a detail panel all loaded into a dock manager frame.

In the main window code behind, when the user clicks a menu option, I clear the children of the stack panel, instantiate the view model, instantiate the view passing the view model into it and then add the new view into the children of the stack. This works fine, but I don't think it's consistent with the pattern.

As I mentioned I have the resource dictionary, but I don't know how to associate it with the stack panel. I assume that I have to use binding, but I can't figure out how to bind to the resource dictionary and/or how to tell it to change views on command.

I have read articles that have added all of the available view models to a read only list in a view model that essentially acts as the go between the main widow and the actual view models needed. This seems OK, but I don't understand why the resource dictionary is needed then. Moreover, these examples were wizard implementations and in that scenario this seems like a good approach, but I can't imagine doing that for an application with say 100 view models. 

Again, sorry for my ignorance, but I was hoping that someone could point me in the right direction. As I said, I've read a ton of articles (Josh Smith, Dave Hill, etc.) and I still haven't made the connection, so I was hoping for some concrete guidance. (I do have WPF Unleashed on the way, but I was hoping to make some progress before then.) 

Can anyone help?