CmdPal: Navigating back to a list page resets the list selection to the first item

[YuriiHaidur]

Description

When a list page has rows whose primary command navigates to another page, drilling into a row and then navigating back (Backspace / Alt+Left / back button) resets the parent list's selection to the first item instead of restoring the row the user drilled in from. The previously highlighted row is lost on every back-navigation.

Steps to reproduce

1. In a list page with several rows where a row's command opens a sub-page, arrow down to a row that isn't the first.
2. Press Enter to navigate into that row's sub-page.
3. Press Backspace (or Alt+Left / back button) to return.
4. Selection is on the first row, not the row you came from.

Expected

Returning to a previously visited list page restores the selection (ideally scroll position too) to where it was when you navigated away.

Actual

Selection resets to index 0 every time.

Root cause (from main source)

This is currently by-design and already flagged as a TODO:

• ShellPage.xaml.cs → GoBack() intentionally does not cache the VM being navigated away from. The comment there (~L500–502) reads:

  // TODO: In the future we probably want a short cache (3-5?) of recent VMs in case the user re-navigates back to a recent page they visited ... so we don't have to reload it from scratch.

• On back-navigation, ShellViewModel.LoadPageViewModelAsync re-initializes the page and CommandPalettePageViewModelFactory.TryCreatePageViewModel always constructs a new ListViewModel (no reuse path).
• ListItemsView.OnViewModelChanged clears _stickySelectedItem when the VM swaps, and the fresh ListViewModel calls FetchItems(keepSelection: false), so selection falls back to the first item.

Because selection is matched by object reference (ProxyReferenceEqualityComparer) and the VM/sticky state is rebuilt from scratch, there is no extension-side workaround: IListItem exposes no stable id, IListPage exposes no initial-selection index, and RaiseItemsChanged(IncrementalRefresh) only affects the current VM, not the new one created on back-navigation.

Suggested fix

Implement the short recent-VM cache described in the existing TODO: cache recent PageViewModels keyed by IPage so back-navigation restores the existing ListViewModel (with its FilteredItems and _stickySelectedItem) instead of constructing a new one.

Environment

• Product: Command Palette (CmdPal)
• Microsoft.CmdPal.UI: 0.10.11181.0
• OS: Windows 11 24H2

Related

• CmdPal: Navigating to page and back results in mismatch between the page, icon and search box placeholder #42247 (closed) — page/icon/placeholder mismatch when navigating to a page and back
• CmdPal: Going back (via KB/button) to the home page clears the top-level search #41737 — going back to home clears the top-level search
• Command Palette: update details pane live without resetting selection #47745 — update details pane live without resetting selection (related selection-preservation work)