Experience the power of XAML :)

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So the PDC is over and from what I see and hear .... Its been a smashing HIT!!! Hip Hip Hooray!!

One really good resource to get your hands dirty with Windows Presentation Foundation is the guided Tour by Tim Sneath.

Previously I had put up some code for a RSS reader but it becomes so much simpler using XAML. How so?

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<DockPanel xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/avalon/2005"
xmlns:x="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/xaml/2005" Margin="10">
   <DockPanel.Resources>
      <XmlDataProvider x:Key="Blog" Source="https://blogs.msdn.com/tims/rss.aspx" />

      <DataTemplate x:Key="TitleTemplate">
         <TextBlock Text="{Binding XPath=title}"/>
      </DataTemplate>
   </DockPanel.Resources>

   <Label Content="{Binding Source={StaticResource Blog}, XPath=/rss/channel/title}"
FontSize="24" FontWeight="Bold" DockPanel.Dock="Top" />     
  
   <Label Content="{Binding Source={StaticResource Blog}, XPath=/rss/channel/description}" FontSize="18" DockPanel.Dock="Top" />

   <DockPanel DataContext="{Binding Source={StaticResource Blog}, XPath=/rss/channel/item}" >
      <ListBox DockPanel.Dock="Left" ItemsSource="{Binding}" ItemTemplate="{StaticResource TitleTemplate}" IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem="True" />
      <Frame Source="{Binding XPath=link}" Width="Auto" />
   </DockPanel>
</DockPanel>

(Above code taken from the Guided Tour To WPF- Tim Sneath)

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Thats all... Surprised!!...Thats the power of WPF. aka Avalon :)

Here we make use of data binding to present the different entries of a blog.

Let me explain it in brief. We have a XmlDataProvider which is the source/provider of the data that will be displayed. A dataTemplate is provided which describes how to present an item - in this case we use a textBlock whose Text is bound to the title of an item. This goes as part of the resources tag.

Next we address the actual presentation/layout of the data. We have 2 labels which display the channel title and description.

Below this we have a DockPanel for easier presentation - a ListBox on the Left and a Frame on the Right. Each ListBoxItem is displayed based on the DataTemplate. Also each item is bound to the Items in the data source - in this case the blog.

A more detailed explanation of Data Binding is provided at MSDN

So you see programming gets simpler by the day... And you cant get better than WPF ;)