Visual Basic 2012 Programmer's Reference

USING WPF WINDOWS

In Windows Forms applications, Form objects play a special role. They represent the top-level user interface components in which all other controls reside. Ignoring behind-the-scenes chores such as parsing command-line arguments and messing with the operating system, a typical Windows Forms application starts by displaying a Form object. That Form may provide buttons, menus, and other controls that open other Form objects, but all of the controls are contained in Form objects.

In WPF applications, you can display controls on a Window, an object that is basically the WPF version of a Form. Alternatively, you can display controls in a Page. A Page is a lot like a Window without decorations such as borders, title bar, and system menus (maximize, minimize, restore, close, and so forth). A Page must be hosted inside another object that provides these decorations. Usually, a Page is displayed in a web browser, but the WPF Frame control can also display Page objects.

This chapter explains how you can use these top-level objects, Window and Page, in your WPF applications. It explains how a program can display and manage multiple Window and Page objects, and provides some examples showing simple navigation schemes.

NOTE

Metro-style applications display controls inside a UserControl object. Metro-style applications are described in Chapter 21.