Prism is a free utility library from the Microsoft® patterns & practices group. The components in this library can help developers build applications for Windows® Presentation Foundation (WPF), Microsoft Silverlight®, and the Windows Phone 7 platform that are easier to maintain and update as requirements change.
Prism was originally built to support composite application scenarios, where you might typically have a shell application and modules
that contribute pieces to the overall application. Although Prism supports this application style, most of the library components offered
by Prism can be useful in building any WPF or Silverlight application. For example, Prism offers components to support the Model-View-
ViewModel (MVVM) pattern as well as pieces to provide loosely coupled communication between parts of an application.
Although the use of a display shell is typically not appropriate in a Windows Phone 7 application, many of the other components
within Prism are useful when building Silverlight applications for Windows Phone 7. For example, you can use the DelegateCommand
provided by Prism to avoid the requirement to implement event handlers in the code-behind of your views when using the MVVM pattern
for your applications.
Prism includes a small library known as the Prism Library for Windows Phone 7, which contains a subset of the main Prism Library features specifically aimed at helping developers to implement solutions to common issues found in developing applications for Windows Phone 7. The library includes classes to help developers implement commands, navigation, observable object notifications, data template selection, interaction with notifications, interaction with the application bar, and more when building applications for Windows Phone 7.
This appendix provides an overview of the Prism Library for Windows Phone 7, which is used in the Tailspin application for Windows
Phone 7 discussed in this guide. For more information and to download Prism, see the Prism home page on MSDN® (http://www.microsoft.com/prism). To provide feedback, get assistance, or download additional content, visit the Prism community site on CodePlex (http://prism.codeplex.com).