Overview of XAML
Applies to: 
Visual Studio 
Visual Studio for Mac
Note
This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here
Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) is a declarative language that's based on XML. XAML is used extensively in the following types of applications to build user interfaces:
The following XAML code defines a simple button control.
<Button Click="ButtonClick">Show updates</Button>
XAML is also used to define workflows in Windows WorkFlow Foundation (WF) apps.
XAML code editor
The XAML code editor in the Visual Studio IDE includes all the tools you need to create WPF and UWP apps for the Windows platform, and for Xamarin.Forms. And although the IDE (integrated development environment) in Visual Studio has many features that you can use to develop apps for other platforms, it also has some features that are unique to XAML, too.
XAML Designer
Visual Studio and Blend for Visual Studio provide a XAML Designer that helps you build user interfaces (UI) for WPF, UWP, and Xamarin.Forms apps. You can drag controls from the Toolbox or Assets window and set properties in the Properties window. When you do so, Visual Studio and Blend for Visual Studio create the corresponding XAML code. If you prefer to edit the XAML code directly, you can do that too.
What's new
For the latest information, refer the following resources:
- The Improvements to XAML tooling in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.7 Preview 1 blog post
- The What’s new in XAML developer tools in Visual Studio 2019 blog post
- The New XAML features in Visual Studio video on YouTube