Vista - Xaml documentation?

When dealing with HTML, W3C has very well laid out documentation on the
available html elements. Drilling into an html element, lets you see all the
attributes that those elements can have.

Is there any such reference for xaml? Everything i do with MS sdk docs takes
6 trips around the block.

Unless i'm doing something wrong; check me. i'll pretend to see if a Button
has a way to set it's Width:

1. Start -> All Programs -> Windows SDK -> Windows SDK Documentation
2. Index, Filtered by .NET Framework 3.0
3. Look for "Button"
4. 25 items down, randomly pick the one called
- button controls [Windows Presentation Foundation]
5. click Button Control
6. scroll, scroll, scroll,
7. See also: Reference: Button
8. scroll, scroll, scroll
9. See Also: Reference: Button Memebers
10. scroll, scroll, scroll
11. Public Properties, Width
12. scroll, scroll, scroll
13. Double, maybe be followed by px, in, cm pt; or can be "Auto"


Compare to W3C. i'll pretend to see if a Table has a way to set it's width:
1. Google "w3c html"
2. HTML 4.01 Specification
3. Click Elements
4. Click Table
5. Click Width


There must decent set of documentation for XAML, released by Microsoft,
somewhere.

XAML being an object markup language is much larger in scope than HTML. But
since you are specifically interested in the WPF object model here's another
suggestion.

1. Google "System.Windows.Controls.Button"
2. First link -> "Button Class (System.Windows.Controls)"
3. Click "Button Properties"
4. Click "Width"

In my document explorer

1. Index, Look for "Button"
2. First item -> "Button Class"
3. Index results "Button Members (System.Windows.Controls)"
3.5 (optionally click "Properties" to reduce the members to only properties)
4. Click "Width"

You also seem to do a lot of unnecessary scrolling. My "See Also" and other
links are in the page header. So going from "Button Class" to "Properties"
is pretty straightforward.

- Doug

"Ian Boyd" <admin@SWIFTPA.NET> wrote in message
news:e7gdxb$7GHA.1496@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> When dealing with HTML, W3C has very well laid out documentation on the
> available html elements. Drilling into an html element, lets you see all
> the attributes that those elements can have.
>
> Is there any such reference for xaml? Everything i do with MS sdk docs
> takes 6 trips around the block.
>
> Unless i'm doing something wrong; check me. i'll pretend to see if a
> Button has a way to set it's Width:
>
> 1. Start -> All Programs -> Windows SDK -> Windows SDK Documentation
> 2. Index, Filtered by .NET Framework 3.0
> 3. Look for "Button"
> 4. 25 items down, randomly pick the one called
> - button controls [Windows Presentation Foundation]
> 5. click Button Control
> 6. scroll, scroll, scroll,
> 7. See also: Reference: Button
> 8. scroll, scroll, scroll
> 9. See Also: Reference: Button Memebers
> 10. scroll, scroll, scroll
> 11. Public Properties, Width
> 12. scroll, scroll, scroll
> 13. Double, maybe be followed by px, in, cm pt; or can be "Auto"
>
>
> Compare to W3C. i'll pretend to see if a Table has a way to set it's
> width:
> 1. Google "w3c html"
> 2. HTML 4.01 Specification
> 3. Click Elements
> 4. Click Table
> 5. Click Width
>
>
> There must decent set of documentation for XAML, released by Microsoft,
> somewhere.
>
>
>

> XAML being an object markup language is much larger in scope than HTML.
> But since you are specifically interested in the WPF object model here's
> another suggestion.
>
> 1. Google "System.Windows.Controls.Button"
> 2. First link -> "Button Class (System.Windows.Controls)"
> 3. Click "Button Properties"
> 4. Click "Width"

1. How do i know that Button is actually System.Windows.Controls.Button. Is
there some documentation on this?
2. How do i know that there is a Xaml markup called Button?
3. i count 46 Xaml controls in
/.NET Framework 3.0 Development/Controls/Control Library
and i count 91 elements on
/w3c.org/TR/html401/index/elements.html
Is there documentation somewhere describing the rest of the Xaml
control? Is there a list somewhere?

Is there some documentation on Xaml and the WPF, so that if i type "Button"
in an index, i get the help on the Xaml Button?


> You also seem to do a lot of unnecessary scrolling. My "See Also" and
> other links are in the page header. So going from "Button Class" to
> "Properties" is pretty straightforward.

Keep in mind that the table of contents doesn't update to where you are.
When i'm using documentation, i assume the documentation of a class to be on
the page dedicated to documenting that class. That's why i keep scrolling
randomly until i find the thing that i'm looking for; which i know is there.

Example#2

i noticed that a StackPanel has Margin, but that's not what i want. i want
something like an "internal margin". If this were HTML it would be called
"Padding". But Padding isn't a valid attribute of a StackPanel element (i
tried it). Not to worry, i'll just look up the documentation.

- .NET Framework 3.0 / Windows Presentation Foundation / Controls / Control
Library

(god, already it's getting too painful to do every time. Normally, i can't
use the index because something like "Button" will have 40 entries. But hey,
StackPanel is pretty unique to WPF, let's try the index again)

- Index -> StackPanel
- StackPanel class / properties (in the left hand side still - don't try
going to the documentation on StackPanel just yet!)
- Hmmm, no Padding. Let's read the Margin docs, and hope it has a "See
also"
- "Alignment, Margins, and Padding Overview" - that's not so good,
there's not supposed to be any Padding attribute
- Oh god, Margin is an attribute of anything, but in order to get Padding i
have to create a dummy Border element?


Time for a break.

> 1. How do i know that Button is actually System.Windows.Controls.Button.
> Is there some documentation on this?

Basically everything inside the WPF
"http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" namespace should
map to the System.Windows.* namespaces. As for documentation I'm not sure.

> 2. How do i know that there is a Xaml markup called Button?

See above. However, XAML is independent of WPF, given appropriate namespace
declarations XAML could just as well instantiate a Windows Forms button or a
Web Forms button.

> 3. i count 46 Xaml controls in
> /.NET Framework 3.0 Development/Controls/Control Library
> and i count 91 elements on
> /w3c.org/TR/html401/index/elements.html
> Is there documentation somewhere describing the rest of the Xaml
> control? Is there a list somewhere?

You could look at all the decendents of Visual, Or FrameworkElement, or
Control. But XAML can actually instantiate any Class.

> Is there some documentation on Xaml and the WPF, so that if i type
> "Button" in an index, i get the help on the Xaml Button?

I think just knowing that the WPF classes you need live within
System.Windows should help.

- Doug