C H A P T E R  14

Custom Controls

So far in this book, you have learned about the many elements of Silverlight and how they can be used to build Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). But what if Silverlight doesn't offer the specific functionality you need for an application? In that case, you might want to create a custom control to provide that additional functionality.

The actual procedure for creating custom controls is not terribly difficult, but understanding the process can be. Under the hood, Silverlight performs some complex work, but most Silverlight developers do not need to know these details. However, to understand custom controls and the process used to build them, you must dive in and see how Silverlight ticks.

In this chapter, you will examine when it is appropriate to write custom controls in Silverlight and explore the different aspects of the Silverlight control model. You will then build a custom control for Silverlight.