Jesse Liberty - Silverlight Geek

Creating XAML Objects in Code

One of the advantages that Silverlight 1.1 does bring to the party is the the isomorphism between XAML and CLR object that is found in Windows Presentation Framework (WPF). Thus, you can create a rectangle declaratively,

<Rectangle x:Name="myRect" Width="120" Height="50" Canvas.Left="10"
              Canvas.Top="10" StrokeThickness="2" Stroke="Black"  >
    <Rectangle.Fill>
      <LinearGradientBrush>
        <GradientStop Color="Red" Offset="0.0"/>
        <GradientStop Color="Orange" Offset="0.2"/>
        <GradientStop Color="Yellow" Offset="0.4"/>
        <GradientStop Color="Green" Offset="0.6"/>
        <GradientStop Color="Blue" Offset="0.8"/>
        <GradientStop Color="Purple" Offset="1.0"/>
      </LinearGradientBrush>
    </Rectangle.Fill>
  </Rectangle>

or you can create the same object programatically,

// declare the rectangle
Rectangle myRectangle = new Rectangle();

 // add it to the canvas  
parentCanvas.Children.Add(myRectangle); 

// set properties
myRectangle.Width = 120;  
myRectangle.Height = 50;
//... 

// set dependency properties
myRectangle.SetValue(LeftProperty, 150);  
myRectangle.SetValue(TopProperty, 10);

// create a Linear Gradient Brush
LinearGradientBrush lgb = new LinearGradientBrush();

// Create a series of GraidentStop objects
GradientStop gs1 = new GradientStop();  
GradientStop gs2 = new GradientStop();
// ...

// Set the color for each stop object
gs1.Color = Colors.Red;
gs2.Color = Colors.Orange;
//...

// Set the offset for each stop object
gs1.Offset = 0.0;
gs2.Offset = 0.2;
// ....

// Add the Gradient stops to the Linear Gradient Brush
lgb.GradientStops.Add(gs1);
lgb.GradientStops.Add(gs2);
//...

// Set the Fill property of MyRectangle to the LinearGradientBrush object
myRectangle.Fill = lgb;

The advantage of being able to create the object programmatically of course is that it makes it much easier to create objects dynamically, in response to events that arise while your program is running.  In  my latest video I explore this aspect of the relationship between XAML and managed code and more.