7. Dependency Properties

Back in Chapter 4 you saw that DependencyObject is the top of the WinRT XAML class hierarchy, and I told you that it’s the base class for objects that participate in the dependency property system. Yeah, okay, fine. What’s a dependency property system, and why do you care? You’ll find out in this chapter.

As we’ll see, dependency properties (known as “DPs” to their friends) work with standard .NET properties to provide several important functions: they calculate their values, they provide change tracking and notification, they can be the target of data binding and animation, and they use a sparse storage model that’s the basis for the attached properties like the ones we used to place an element in a Grid (check page ...

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