A Standards-based Look at XAML's Features : Page 3

XAML and XUL Windowing Features
You might wish that the lists stopped with Table 2, but alas, XAML has a heap of tags to consider.

Some features of XAML are designed for application windows, not for hypertext-laden multimedia documents. Such windows look like any Microsoft Windows or GNOME control panel or like any other forms-and-menu based application that you might find, whether it be WinZip or GnuCash. Such applications are also the problem domain that Mozilla's XUL addresses, so it's no surprise that in this area, a large number of XAML and XUL tags match up nicely. Table 3 shows these equivalences.

Table 3. XAML and XUL tag equivalents that describe extended widgets.

XAML Tag	XUL tag	Description
Application	Window	A whole application GUI expressed as XML
ContextMenu	Menupopup	floating menu that appears when context-clicking (right clicking on Windows)
DesignSurface	canvas, deck, stack	An area used for arbitrary placement of content
DockPanel	Box	A layout device subject to vertical and horizonal alignment instructions.
EmbeddedDialog	Dialog	A modal dialog box
GridPanel	Grid	2-dimensional set of cells much like a table.
HorizontalScrollBar	Scrollbar align="horizontal"	A scrollbar used to scroll across content
NavigationWindow	opposite of the chrome specifier	An area decorated with standard Web browser navigation controls
ObjectDataSource	template datasources=	Specification of external data for dynamic display
Popup	menupopup	The bit of a context menu or drop down menu that appears when summoned
QueryCommand	rule	A data query that supports dynamic content generation
RepeatButton	autorepeatbutton	A button that fires continuously
SimpleText	Text	Text that truncates when space is short
TextPanel	Editor	An area used to edit and format text
ToolTip	Tooltip	A textual hint that hovers over a widget
VerticalScrollBar	scrollbar align="vertical"	A scrollbar used to scroll up or down through content
Window	Window	The GUI equivalent of HTML's body tag.
WindowNavigationContainer	Browser	A tag that allows page-oriented navigation of its content
XmlDataSource	template datasources=	Specification of external data for dynamic display

Table 3 shows that both XAML and XUL provide a large list of additional (beyond HTML) GUI widgets to choose from, plus some support for record management applications through the use of data-driven GUI elements. XAML is pretty powerful in that area, and will no doubt challenge Mozilla's sophisticated but unusual template system once there's proper SQL support in Longhorn.

The irony of these widget-oriented tags is that XUL does to Microsoft and XAML what Microsoft does to everybody else. XUL contains just about all of the popular and frequently used widgets that people need, but without the underlying complexity of .NET. The heavy lifting underneath XAML's widgets is probably overkill for a wide range of applications—particularly the record management applications that are the heartbeat of most large organizations. To developers building those applications, XAML's highly integrated widgets are a risky bet on high-end media-rich GUI applications of the future. Just how much of the application market that is, only many years will tell. Personally, I don't need a rotating terminal window.

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