WPF is Different - The XAML Way of Doing Things

Wow, I've finally spent some time looking at Silverlight and WPF samples, and it sure takes a while to wrap your head around "The XAML Way of Doing Things". It's so easy to fall back to the WinForms coding style when you're supposed to do it The XAML Way.

For example, if you have an options dialog with user settings for your app - DON'T do it the old WinForms way, but look at Configuration with Databinding (from Scott Hanselman's adventure with BabySmash). The code behind you need is really minimal if you do it the right way.

There are also a gazillion ways to handle control events declaratively within the XAML itself, without having to create a code behind event and code things up from there. Take a look at WPF Styles and Triggers and learn it! Especially if you want to create nice looking effects, animations and such, but styles and triggers are useful for more than bells and whistles. For many things related to the UI there are 2 ways of doing it - in XAML or in code behind. There's a pretty good starter on Styles and Triggers on the Microsoft Belgium MSDN site. It may not be wrong to do it in code behind, and some things *must* be coded that way, but always search for The XAML Way of doing it before falling into old WinForms behaviour.

Finally, what will take me a long time to understand and learn (if I ever learn it) is the XAML layout manager. I'm trying to position a group of controls in the center of a WPF Window that may be in full screen mode. First I used the Canvas panel and hacked away in a WinForms style specifying location depending on screen size and stuff, but I'm sure it can all be done in XAML... somehow *smile* ScottGu wrote an intro for Silverlight 2 on the layout manager, which is good reading if you are new to this.

I should probably install Expression Blend and learn at least the basics of it. The XAML editor in VS2008 is just not enough for more complex layouts. What scares me somewhat is that a fairly complex WPF/Silverlight window may result in pretty nasty XAML with a bunch of Grids, Stackpanels, Canvases, more Stackpanels within Stackpanels within a certain Grid.Column and so on. Add a bunch more if you're using triggers and animation. I know you can shrink the XAML somewhat by using Styles, but are we getting back into HTML Table Hell again when we've just been saved by CSS?