Chapter 15. Extensions, converters, custom controls, and panels

Now that you know the structure and rules for XAML files, let’s look at something that allows you to bend those rules a little: extensions.

XAML allows you to represent almost anything using the object element and property attribute syntaxes. But some things can get cumbersome to do that way. For that reason, XAML includes the concept of extensions in the form of markup extensions and type converters. Silverlight also includes the concept of a value converter, but because that’s used almost exclusively with binding, I’ll cover it in chapter 16.

You’ll want to internalize both concepts to understand what’s happening when XAML is parsed or what those curly braces mean.

New in Silverlight 5 is the ability to create your own custom markup extensions. This is especially useful when creating your own toolkits for patterns like Model View ViewModel (MVVM). It’s also a great escape chute if the functionality XAML provides out of the box isn’t meeting your needs.

15.1. Markup extensions

15.2. Custom type converters

15.3. Creating a custom panel

15.4. Creating a custom control

15.5. Summary