Sams Teach Yourself WPF in 24 Hours

Chapter 2. Understanding XAML

What You’ll Learn in This Hour:

• What is XAML?

• The basic syntax of XAML

• How properties can be represented as elements

• Namespaces

• Markup extensions

XAML, or Extensible Application Markup Language, is an XML-based language created by Microsoft. It’s as fundamental to WPF as HTML is to web development.

What Is XAML?

XAML (pronounced zammel) is the language used for creating user interfaces in WPF. It’s an XML-based markup language similar to HTML, MXML, or XUL. XAML has applicability well beyond defining user interfaces. In fact, it’s even possible to represent data with XAML, such as an array of strings or an instance of object. XAML is also used by Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) for defining workflows. In the most general ...