PDC 2008 - XAML with .NET 4.0

from #pdc2008: XAML enhancements!
XAML nowadays is used with the UI (WPF, Silverlight), Workflows (WF), and Electronic Paper (XPS).
XPS is just going to be an ECMA standard!

With all these uses XAML is going into a language evolution. Goals of this is to make XAML faster and easier to use.

The XAML language extensions are defined by this list:

• improved named references
• support for built-in types
• full generics support
• support for arbitrary dictionary values
• declarative events without compiling
• declarative definition of types
• arguments for non-default constructors
• factory methods

The notepad for XAML, XAMLPad, has been enhanced. Besides the XML and object box it now gives a DOM box to display the DOM model. With the F12 key, a visual representation of the XAML type is shown.

For reading/writing/processing XAML, .NET 4.0 includes the System.Xaml.dll assembly. It contains XamlXmlReader, XamlXmlWriter, BamlReader, BamlWriter, DomReader, DomWriter, ObjectReader, ObjectWriter. Now it's easier to develop e.g. a SVG conversion. To convert from SVG to XAML, the SVGReader and XamlXmlWriter come into play. For creating objects on the fly out of SVG, SVGReader and ObjectWriter are used.
The System.Xaml assembly will be available here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=132499

In the early days of XAML and WPF, simple applications have been shown that just need XAML code but no code-behind. Now it is possible to write an application that makes use of WPF, WF, and WCF purely using XAML.

Christian