When you initially create a new Windows Phone application, the XAML view for the application will appear similar to the following:
<phone:PhoneApplicationPage x:Class="C1WP7.MainPage" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:phone="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone" xmlns:shell="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Shell;assembly=Microsoft.Phone" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignWidth="480" d:DesignHeight="768" FontFamily="{StaticResource PhoneFontFamilyNormal}" FontSize="{StaticResource PhoneFontSizeNormal}" Foreground="{StaticResource PhoneForegroundBrush}" SupportedOrientations="Portrait" Orientation="Portrait" shell:SystemTray.IsVisible="True">
<!--LayoutRoot is the root grid where all page content is placed-->
<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="Transparent">
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
<RowDefinition Height="*"/>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<!--TitlePanel contains the name of the application and page title-->
<StackPanel x:Name="TitlePanel" Grid.Row="0" Margin="12,17,0,28">
<TextBlock x:Name="ApplicationTitle" Text="MY APPLICATION" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextNormalStyle}"/>
<TextBlock x:Name="PageTitle" Text="page name" Margin="9,-7,0,0" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextTitle1Style}"/>
</StackPanel>
<!--ContentPanel - place additional content here-->
<Grid x:Name="ContentPanel" Grid.Row="1" Margin="12,0,12,0"></Grid>
</Grid>
<!--Sample code showing usage of ApplicationBar-->
<!--<phone:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar>
<shell:ApplicationBar IsVisible="True" IsMenuEnabled="True">
<shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="/Images/appbar_button1.png" Text="Button 1"/>
<shell:ApplicationBarIconButton IconUri="/Images/appbar_button2.png" Text="Button 2"/>
<shell:ApplicationBar.MenuItems>
<shell:ApplicationBarMenuItem Text="MenuItem 1"/>
<shell:ApplicationBarMenuItem Text="MenuItem 2"/>
</shell:ApplicationBar.MenuItems>
</shell:ApplicationBar>
</phone:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar>-->
</phone:PhoneApplicationPage>
If you've worked in Silverlight before you'll note that it appears very similar to a standard Silverlight application. The LayoutRoot of the application is a Grid. By default when you create an application, it creates a TitlePanel and a ContentPanel containing panels and TextBlocks.
The markup that is commented out displays a default ApplicationBar. The ApplicationBar provides a menu system in Windows Phone. The Application Bar is displayed as a row of between one and four icon buttons along the bottom of the phone’s screen. The icon buttons are used to provide users with quick access to an application’s most common tasks.