Question

I have problems figuring out where to use what xaml keywords because its hard to figure out what hierarchy it wants. It seems there is some grand design on how and where to use attributes, properties or child nodes.

<Node Attribute="True">
  <Node.Property />
</Node>

I found this beautiful page explaining all the ribbon menu properties, but have no idea how to use them in xaml. After half an hour of searching and trying everything I managed to get an Icon to show in the ribbon menu button.

1. What is the logic behind this all and how to figure out what to use where?

2. How to merge the ribbon menu with the application bar (the top bar on most windows applications)? So I get a nice Ribbon Application Menu, like in the example.

3. Is there a way to turn off xaml background compliation? I’d sacrifice Intellisense for this.

Because the xaml editor performance is abysmal, the are many suggestions for this, but none working so far.

Edit:
I know the xaml syntax, but there’s no hint on what hierarchy to use. So if I find the object I want to use (because they are all available) it will only say I’m using the wrong object, it should ask for the kind of object it wants to be in.

Also in normal programming when you use a reference you can always use all classes in it. With xaml we must suddenly know what reference our class came from, also it won’t find the reference for you, you either have to try all references to see if they have a certain class or find a code example.

Answer 1

Good questions. Its a little hard to get a feel for exactly what you’re asking for in your #1 question, but I’ll take a brief stab at that one. I do have an answer for your #2 question. I do not have an answer for your #3.

“1. What is the logic behind this all and how to figure out what to use where?”

Like Clemens mentioned, the XAML Overview does a pretty good job at explaining things.
I’m guessing that one of the main things that you’re asking about is basically “when do you use attribute syntax vs property element syntax”. From that doc:

For some properties of an object element, attribute syntax is not possible, because the object or information necessary to provide the property value cannot be adequately expressed within the quotation mark and string restrictions of attribute syntax. For these cases, a different syntax known as property element syntax can be used….

Now about this part of your question…

“Also in normal programming when you use a reference you can always use all classes in it. With xaml we must suddenly know what reference our class came from, also it won’t find the reference for you, you either have to try all references to see if they have a certain class or find a code example.”

If part of your question is more about how can you more-easily handle your XAML (or more appropriately xmlns) namespaces so that it is easier to get references ironed out in your XAML, there is a technique that you may find useful. It lets you consolidate namespaces so that you can use fewer XAML namespace prefixes (or even no namespace prefixes if you take this technique to its extreme).

“2. How to merge the ribbon menu with the application bar (the top bar on most windows applications)? So I get a nice Ribbon Application Menu, like in the example.”

Essentially it seems that you’re asking how to: (a) extend the window chrome area (the Aero glass area) down into the client part of the window (the part that your application normally gets to put things) and (b) extend the client part of the window up into the window chrome area. If you can do both of these things, then you can end up with something that looks like Microsoft office products or modern web browsers. Fortunately there is the WPF Shell Integration Library which helps you do both of these things. I found this blog and this blog (and the source code they offer) good guides for getting started with using the WPF Shell Integration Library.

Using this library, I was able to make this window (all but the Aero color changing abilities which is a whole other topic). Notice that both of qualities I mentioned are working here (the TabControl is being display up in the normal window chrome top bar area and the window chrome Aero glass is being displayed down in the normal client area):