When to use a WPF Dependency Property versus INotifyPropertyChanged

Question

Do folks have any guidance on when a simple .NET property that fires INotifyPropertyChanged.PropertyChanged is sufficient in a view model? Then when do you wan

Answer 1

As the other answers have already said enough about when to create dependency property. i.e.

1. PropertyValue inheritence
2. you need to use binding on a property
3. Use animation for the property

The one more perspective/question on this is "In a WPF application is makes sense to create dependency properties in a control cause they are likely to change during user interaction like Height,width, text,content, background etc but what about other classes like Behaviors Classes(Non UI classes). Do properties in those classes need to be a dependency property?"

I won't say for very absolute or emphasis on some set of rules here but you should create your properties as DP. As from design perspective if a property is DP it's always in default form of WPF to use/bind.i.e.

1. As a DP is much more fast/natural in reflecting changes compare to a normal CLR property.
2. A DP has validation mechanism to validate the value assigned and a default structure to revert the value.
3. A DP has Coerce value callback to control the limits of property.
4. A DP has meta data associated with it unlike CLR property.

In terms of practices I've seen people doing many mistakes in nested bindings and then raising changes these kind of faults doesn't happen with a DP cause of it's design and compatibility of raising change itself. So with a little extra syntax you put a flexibility/performance/ easeness to your application. So go for it wherever affordable.

Still can't say sure for ViewModel classes/other helper classes. will update the answer if found convincing reasons in future.

Just a post worth reading on this topic