title: Should the Silverlight root tag be UserControl or Canvas?
body: <p>I'm reading Silverlight 2 Unleashed, published in October 2008 and it has examples in it with a root canvas tag:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;Canvas xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/client/2007"
      xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
      Background="Red"
      Width="500"
      Height="300"&gt;
          &lt;Ellipse Width="400"...
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However when I create a new Silverlight Application in VS2008, I get a UserControl root tag:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;UserControl x:Class="TestFirst.Page"
      xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" 
      xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" 
      Width="400" Height="300"&gt;
      &lt;Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="White"...
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Of course I can change this by replacing the root tag with Canvas but then I have to also change the code behind to inherit from Canvas instead of UserControl and have to take out the InitializeComponent method. </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Is using the Canvas tag as the root standard or is the book going about an alternate way to create Silverlight applications?</li>
  <li>What are the advantages of using Canvas instead of UserControl as the root element?</li>
  <li>Why would the book for its first examples create silverlight applications in a different way than is given by default in Visual Studio?</li>
  <li>Is there a way to have a canvas tag generated as the root tag by default in Visual Studio?</li>
  </ul>