my process has been for the shell to register a command to a request notification sent from the module and for the module to register a command for a release notification sent from the shell. Is this insane, or is that really the cleanest pure mvc approach? I feel like I'm beginning to overcomplicated what is normally simple task.
You should be handling this with Messages, not Notifications. I don't know about Fabrication, but Messages will give you strong typing and the ability to put the whole protocol into the message itself. The JunctionMediator should be able to route the message.
The task of getting data from one module to another is not always simple since you don't want to create dependencies between the modules. You need a shared protocol for communications. You can't just reach into a module and grab the data without forming a dependency - the knowledge of where and what kind of data is inside that other module.
-=Cliff>