WPF in Action with Visual Studio 2008 [Paperback]

Arlen Feldman (Author), Maxx Daymon (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1933988223 | ISBN-13: 978-1933988221 | Publication Date: December 5, 2008 | Edition: 1

Now more than ever, Windows applications have to work well and look good. Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Microsoft's new user interface framework, gives you the ability to create stunning graphics, rich interactions, and highly-usable Windows applications. WPF is the API beneath Windows Vista interfaces, and it's also available for older versions of Windows. Up to this point, it has only been possible to build WPF applications manually, mainly by hand-coding in XAML-WPF's declarative XML-based markup language. The soon-to-be-released Visual Studio 2008 provides the full set of developer tools you need to take advantage of this exciting technology.

The combination of WPF and Visual Studio 2008 represents the start of the next generation of Windows applications. Hand-coding XAML is fine if you're an early adopter, but to put WPF into production, you need to master the tools and application styles you'll use in your day job.

WPF In Action focuses on WPF development using Visual Studio 2008 and other available tools.. The book starts with thorough coverage of the basics-layouts, styles, resources, and themes. It then takes you through several real-world scenarios, exploring common challenges and application-types. You'll build several sample applications, ranging from a simple calculator to a typical line-of-business application. Along the way, you'll add graphical elements, animation, and support for printing, accessibility, and other standard functionality.

Written in a witty, engaging style, WPF In Action can be read cover-to-cover or used to reference specific problems and issues. The approach is practical and always focused on how you'll use WPF in real development scenarios. You'll learn how to handle the many new issues presented by the extreme flexibility of WPF. The authors also provide numerous tips and suggestions for how to work efficiently.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Arlen Feldman specializes in meta-data driven applications, particularly focusing on usability issues. He was chief architect for the award-winning HEAT software product, and has been working with .NET since its earliest days. He worked with Microsoft on the direction of .NET, the C# language and Visual Studio as a member of the C# customer advisory group. Arlen is the author of ADO.NET Programming (Manning, 2003), and is the Chief Architect for Cherwell Software.

Product Details

• Paperback: 650 pages
• Publisher: Manning Publications; 1 edition (December 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933988223
• ISBN-13: 978-1933988221
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #892,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Opinionated but really good book, January 2, 2009

By 

Techie Evan - See all my reviews

This review is from: WPF in Action with Visual Studio 2008 (Paperback)

According to the authors, their goal for this book is to not only teach developers how to use WPF, but more importantly, how to use it well and properly. For this reason, they offer a lot of their opinions about what they think are great and not so great about WPF as of the 3.5 SP1 Release, in comparison to Windows Forms, for example. Also, instead of just showing you the steps involved in, say, creating data bindings or animation effects, they show you how to go one or two steps further to create architecturally resilient frameworks that support easier swapping of animation effects or data access components. Divided into four parts, the book begins with a three chapter introduction that includes a historical discussion of how WPF is so different from previous UI Technology offerings from Microsoft. Part 2, consisting of Chapters 4 through 8, gets readers involved in building a calculator application and, through that process, teaches readers about controls, layouts, dependency and attached properties, events, styling and resource management. Part 3, consisting of Chapters 9 through 15, tackles data binding, graphics, and custom controls. The two lengthy chapters on data binding (Chapters 11 and 12) are, in my opinion, the best chapters in the book, covering rarely discussed topics such as MultiBindings, Priority Bindings, and current gotchas when working with results collections from LINQ queries and potential workarounds. Finally, Part 4 consists of one or two chapters each on XBAP, Printing, and Threading etc. Despite its heftiness, the book does not provide comprehensive coverage of WPF concepts; instead, the authors have carefully chosen the topics they wanted to concentrate on (for example, they provide simplified explanations of how attached and dependency properties work, choosing not to elaborate on the runtime complexities involved behind the scene). Also, the authors may be opinionated, but their rather folksy writing style makes the book an easy read.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great addition to your WPF library, February 13, 2009

By 

James Thomas Tomasko (Fremont, Ca United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: WPF in Action with Visual Studio 2008 (Paperback)

I concider this book a "must read" for anybody working with WPF. While I now have 6 books specifically on WPF, I find this one to offer a fresh look at a variety of topics, and their examples well documented and easier to work with than other books.
This could not be your only book on WPF, as I do not concider this a reference book, but more of a collection of well written tutorials. In that, not all areas of WPF are covered. As an example, unless its buried inside of a topic I have not looked at yet, there is no explaination of drag and drop.

Of the topics they do hit, you can expect that you will gain perspective into these areas that you did not have before. I personally found their treatment of custom controls to significantly further my understanding of how to architect my own.
The author's style of writting is "kind'a back-woods", which I feel they pulled off well. This style typically scares me, but I must admit that I found my stamina for forging ahead seems higher when I'm "cozied up" to this book.

Last word, if you have to have only two books on WPF, get a big fat one with lots of reference such as "Pro WPF in C# 2008", but make this your second book... the one that going to provide you with good experiments and insight into some core topics.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent hands-on WPF book, March 4, 2009

By 

James Ashley (Lawrenceville, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: WPF in Action with Visual Studio 2008 (Paperback)

I admire the way WPF has been presented in this book. Arlen Feldman and Maxx Daymon have done a masterful job.

The two extremes of technology books are the densely-typed reference works that make your eyes tear over and the happy-chatty books that try too hard to convince you that you are having a good time. WPF in Action steers carefully between these extremes by providing a deep understanding of the WPF technology through what are basically step-by-step tutorials that build upon each other.

WPF is a mind-bending technology that seems to defy many of the rules we are used to in the WinForm and WebForm world. This means that understanding it can only come through actual hands on coding. WPF in Action facilitates this process and leads us through the mind-set change required to truly grasp WPF.

This is an excellent work, especially when complemented with something like Matthew MacDonald's Pro WPF in C#, which is much longer on the details but shorter on practicums.