The navigation framework of Silverlight 3 is great. The URI mapping and browser history support add a lot of value.
When upgrading a Silverlight 2 site to use Silverlight 3 with navigation, I was surprised to see that all of my HyperlinkButtons that referenced external URLs were failing!
For example, a button with this XAML:
<HyperlinkButton Content="Microsoft" NavigateUri="http://www.microsoft.com"/>
when clicked yields this:
It turns out that once your HyperlinkButton is inside of a navigation frame (which it will be once you add navigation support to your application), you need to set the TargetName property of the button. To preserve the Silverlight 2 behavior where the referenced URI loads in the same browser window, use “_self” as the TargetName:
<HyperlinkButton Content="Microsoft" NavigateUri="http://www.microsoft.com" TargetName="_self"/>
You can also use “_blank” to open up the page in a new browser window.
When using a HyperlinkButton to navigate to a Silverlight page internal to your application, TargetName should reference the name of the navigation frame:
<navigation:Frame x:Name="ContentFrame" Source="/home">
<navigation:Frame.UriMapper>
<uriMapper:UriMapper>
<uriMapper:UriMapping Uri="" MappedUri="/Views/Home.xaml"/>
<uriMapper:UriMapping Uri="/{pageName}" MappedUri="/Views/{pageName}.xaml"/>
</uriMapper:UriMapper>
</navigation:Frame.UriMapper>
</navigation:Frame>
<HyperlinkButton NavigateUri="/about" TargetName="ContentFrame" Content="About Us"/>
HyperlinkButtons fixed!