Title:............................ Pro WPF Windows Presentation Foundation in .NET 3.0
Author:........................ Matthew MacDonald
Publisher:..................... Apress
Publication Date:........... 2007
ISBN:........................... 978-1-59059-782-8
Reviewer:.................... Walter V. Williams, Jr.
Review Date:................ January 2008
Books stated purpose: This book is an in-depth exploration of WPF for professional developers who know the .NET platform, the C# language, and the Visual Studio development environment.
This book introduces the developer to the WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), which is a new graphical display system for Windows. This book is well written from beginning to end, and takes the developer through the process of learning how to utilize the capabilities of WPF. The author provides references to outside sources throughout the book. These either provide a more in depth look at the current topic, or point to a tool that would be useful. The author introduces WPF in a manner that lets developers of any level understand what WPF is and the benefits of using WPF. Then chapter by chapter he provides instructions and examples that take the developer through the learning process about WPF.
System Requirements;
· To run WPF applications, you must be running Windows Vista or Windows XP with Service Pack 2.
· To create WPF application, you must have either Visual Studio 2005 with .NET 3.0 and the WPF extension, or Visual Studio 2008.
The early part of the book is about the basics in and about WPF. The author gives basic, but understandable examples that lead the developer in a growing understanding of WPF. Once the developer has the basics of WPF down, the author begins to build on this base.
One of the basics covered is the creation of the Application object. This is the foundation for all the code throughout the book. Another basic operation covered is the layout of the forms. WPF provides the ability for Windows forms to dynamically grow and resize based on data and language, similar to Web Forms. It takes more work to set up a form, but it will give the user a much better experience in using it.
Now that the developer has the basics, the author moves along the path for using them. The developer is introduced to the WPF controls and how to develop with them. There are a number of features added to familiar controls. Some examples include: Tooltips can now contain both images and text. Multi-line text boxes can grow dynamically and text does not have to always break where it fits the textbox edge. You can add a dynamic spell check to textboxes.
There is a chapter on building control templates or modifying existing controls. This feature appears to be more powerful, and quicker than the old method of building a new specialized control from scratch.
The following topics are part of what is covered as the book continues. Data Binding to a database, Printing, Animation, Sound and Video and 3-D drawing.
The author wraps the book up with a short tutorial on using the ClickOnce Deployment. If the developer has already learned to use the ClickOnce Deployment, this chapter can be skipped. However, it is a useful conclusion to the book if the developer has not yet used the ClickOnce Deployement.
The book is pretty detailed. This review only touches on a few of the highlights from the book that specifically caught the reviewer’s eye. It is worth adding to any developers library if they are looking to do new development for Windows Vista or Windows XP SP2.