title: When to use a templated control over a UserControl?
body: <p>I was looking some tutorials on how to create custom controls in WinRT, and I have a question.</p>
  
  <p>Let's say I want to create a simple control that contains some stuff, like a Grid with an image on the left and a couple of TextBlocks on the right.</p>
  
  <p>I mean, something simple like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;Grid Height="100"&gt;
      &lt;Grid.ColumnDefinitions&gt;
          &lt;ColumnDefinition Width="0.3*"/&gt;
          &lt;ColumnDefinition Width="0.7*"/&gt;
      &lt;/Grid.ColumnDefinitions&gt;
      &lt;Image Source"/Assets/someRandomImage.png"/&gt;
      &lt;StackPanel Grid.Column="1"
                  VerticalAlignment="Center"&gt;
          &lt;TextBlock Text="Some text"
                     Margin="10,0,10,0"
                     FontSize="24"
                     FontWeight="SemiLight"
                     TextTrimming="CharacterEllipsis"/&gt;
          &lt;TextBlock Text="Some random description..."
                     Margin="10,5,10,0"
                     FontSize="18"
                     FontWeight="Light"
                     Foreground="Gray"
                     TextWrapping="Wrap"
                     TextTrimming="CharacterEllipsis"/&gt;
      &lt;/StackPanel&gt;
  &lt;/Grid&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I would create a UserControl with this content, so I'd be able to see it in the XAML Designer while I'm working on its UI, and I'd add all the Properties and DependencyProperties in the UserControl code behind.</p>
  
  <p>Then I saw that another approach would be to use a Template control, so I'd have to create a class that inherits from the Control class, then use the above XAML code as a template and apply it to the custom control and add all the rest of the logic there.</p>
  
  <p>Of course, I'd also have to add the x:Name property to some those UIElements inside the control to be able to interact with them, but you get the idea.</p>
  
  <p>I was wondering, is it ok to use either one of these two methods, or is better to use one in particular, and why?
  Also, I like using UserControls since I can see them in the Designer window, and instead I wouldn't be able to do that with a Template, I'd have to run the app and create an instance of the control to see what it actually looks like.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks for your help, I think I'm not the only one with this doubt, so I hope this question will help others as well :D</p>
  
  <p>Sergio</p>