WPF Very Beginner Issue - Setting Default Control Values - wpf

Question

Here is a very basic question from a WPF novice.
I have a form with some controls such as TextBoxes, DatePickers for example.
In a typical Windows Forms, I would set default values to these in onFormLoad event like
txtName.Text = "N/A";
dpStartDate.Value = DateTime.Now(5); //set 5 days from now
dpEndDate.Value = DateTime.Now(10); //set 10 days from now
How to do this in WPF form and where? This is a very beginner question, where to do it the right WPF-way?
UPDATE:
So far, I have found that I can do this in Window_Loaded event like:
private void Window_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
// Initialize Employee Data
txtName.Text = "N/A";
dpEmplDate.Text = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-100).Date.ToString();
dpTermDate.Text = DateTime.Now.AddDays(1).Date.ToString();
txtAddress.Text = "N/A";
dpDateOfBirth.Text = "";
txtDepartment.Text="N/A";
...
...
}
So, I am setting default employee values like this.
My question is, is this proper WPF way to initialize data?
Thanks,

Answer 1

There is no preferences to set values to Controls till you are not using MVVM pattern.
You can do it in XAML:
<TextBox Name=txtName Text="N/A"/>
or in code-behind:
txtName.Text = "N/A";
But WPF is very cool technology cause it can provide clean separation of concerns between data and view. It can be achieved using MVVM pattern.
It possible to use Binding to send data between data and view and from view to data. So in MVVM pattern data is set from view model. The example of syntax:
View:
<TextBox Text="{Binding FooProperty}"/>>
ViewModel:
public class FooViewModel
{
private string fooProperty="Hello World";
public string FooProperty
{
get { return fooProperty; }
set { fooProperty = value; }
}
}
DataContext property uses to connect View and ViewModel. Data from ViewModel will not be shown without setting DataContext property .