ASP.NET MVC & Expression XAML - How do I integrate?

Question

Some Background:
ASP.net MVC is primarly a paradigm shift in the way you structure and develop ASP.NET applications. Shifting from a "code behind" type of mentality to more of a standard MVC Ruby on Rails like mentality. I applaud it's efforts as a simlifying tool towards unit testing ease and seperation of code (although the html inline code could be debatable).

Expression and XAML is a way to describe the presentation layer that can be simple for designers.

The question is:

If we are to use ASP.NET MVC in developing our next website how does the design team that uses Expression and XAML supposed to create (V)iews or integrate into the development flow?

More specifically can Expression users still operate in an ASP.NET MVC world?

Note that the pages in Expression's model use a code behind paradigm as well.

Answer 1

I will try to answer this, making several assumptions that may be wrong.

ASP.Net MVC is a web technology and XAML is a desktop one. You can use XAML inside Internet Explorer, but it's basically a hack, it works best for desktop or silverlight applications.

If you want a paradigm similar to MVC for the desktop, you should try the M-V-VM pattern, who is more appropriate to WPF and XAML.
With M-V-VM you can create views almost code-behind free.
A great intro to M-V-VM is this video by Jason Dolinger

If you are making a website using MVC and you are trying to integrate the design team, you should let them create the HTML+CSS views of your site, while the developers create the controllers and the models.

Please comment in this answer if I have misinterpreted the question.

Answer 2

I'm currently banging my head on these terms. However, maybe this silverlight-as-a-view-in-aspnet-mvc article will help? You've asked about XAML, and I thing this is what Silverlight uses...

Answer 3

It is a hack, but you can use XAML to render static images in ASP.NET MVC. Check out my post XAML Meets ASP.NET MVC - Serverside Image Rendering - that shows how to render XAML and WPF controls as an image in ASP.NET MVC

http://amazedsaint.blogspot.com/2010/07/xaml-meets-aspnet-mvc-create-databound.html