WPF Recipes in C# 2008: A Problem-Solution Approach (Expert's Voice in .Net) (Paperback)

by Allen Jones (Author), Sam Bourton (Author), Sam Noble (Author)
Key Phrases: text box, button command, text block, Button Content, Setter Property, Binding Path (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

WPF offers amazing new opportunities to .NET programmers in terms of the user interfaces they can deliver to their customers. But this significant technological advance comes with a steep learning curve, requiring the programmer to learn new classes, new syntax, and an entirely new approach to UI development.

Although WPF has been generally available for over a year, commercial take–up has been relatively slow, and the publicly available body of knowledge has been weak in terms of real–world examples and best–practice information.

Using WPF Recipes in C# 2008, you’ll find a simple and straightforward approach to solving the problems you face every day. Each solution contains a complete, working example that demonstrates how to make the best use of WPF. You can use the example as a template to solve your own problem or as a base on which to build a solution tailored to your specific needs.

Packed with well–structured and documented solutions to a broad range of common WPF problems, this book, which presents the only WPF recipes currently published, will be a valuable addition to any C# programmer’s reference library. Examples included provide you with a rich source of information as you begin to learn and will be an invaluable quick–reference guide once you’re a proficient WPF programmer.

The emphasis on solving the day–to–day WPF problems that all programmers face frees you from needing to trawl through weighty programming tomes or sift through API documentation, allowing you to focus on the more interesting and innovative aspects of your project.

What you’ll learn

• Get hands–on experience applying WPF to real–world business applications.
• Find quick answers to common problems.
• Develop a new mindset to UI development and a new approach to implementation from the authors’ experience in graphics.
• Peruse clear and concise code samples that demonstrate solutions to specific problems.

Who is this book for?

This book will benefit intermediate–to–advanced professional C# programmers who want clearly documented and working code samples that demonstrate solutions to common problems encountered when programming WPF. The authors believe WPF technology is new and complex enough, and their experience is deep enough that their recipes will provide value to all but the most experienced WPF programmers.

About the Apress Recipes Series

Apress Recipes series books are carefully selected compendiums of solutions and techniques to help you solve the difficulties that regularly beset developers when they are learning a new language or technology. The recipes are short, and each provides a step–by–step explanation and working code example that allows you to successfully solve your problems and progress with your project.

About the Author

Allen Jones has over 15 years’ experience covering a wide range of IT disciplines in a variety of sectors; however, his true passion has always been software development. Allen is currently chief architect at SmithBayes, a UK–based software firm that develops high–end strategic decision support software derived from technology used in Formula 1 motor racing.

Sam Bourton is a technologist with 9 years’ commercial experience as a software designer and developer across a wide variety of industries including e–commerce, telephony, and Formula 1 racing. He has been using the .NET Framework since the very first beta, and .NET 3.0 and the Windows Presentation Foundation since the early CTPs. He has a passion for design patterns, application architecture, and best–practice methodologies.

Sam Noble is a computer science graduate turned software developer. At Reading University, he specialized in 3D graphics programming, artificial neural networks, and compiler design. Sam has 18 months’experience developing sophisticated strategic visualization tools using .NET 3.0 and WPF.

Product Details

• Paperback: 700 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (September 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430210842
• ISBN-13: 978-1430210849
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #58,750 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #59 in

  Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Languages & Tools > C#

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very well written, organized, and comprehensive, September 24, 2008

By	Techie Evan - See all my reviews

This very well written and organized book provides comprehensive coverage of WPF features. The authors get down to business right away, assuming that most readers already know basic WPF concepts such as Dependency Property, Attached Property, etc. because they don't waste time explaining many such building block concepts, and yet a few of the recipes are surprisingly beginner-ish material. Of the 200+ recipes, the ones that I thought gave me the most bang for my buck are those contained in Chapters 11 (Creating Animation), 7 (Working With Text, Documents, and Printing), 4 (Creating User and Custom Controls) and 5 (Data Binding), either because they covered materials not found many where else, or they clarified some concepts for me. For example, the Animation Recipes discussed concepts not even covered in the very well-received "Practical WPF Graphics Programming" book by Jack Xu. The recipes in Chapters 6 (Working With Styles, Templates, Skins and Themes), 8 (Multithreading), and 10 are good, and the remaining recipes in Chapters 1 (Building and Debugging WPF Applications), 2 (Working With Windows, Forms, and Layout Management), 3 (Using Standard Controls), 9 (Working With 2D Graphics), 12 (Dealing With Multimedia and User Input) and 13 (Migrating and Windows Forms Interoperability) cover materials easily found in other books. Another positive, however, is that some chapters contain bonus nuggets of information on things you can do to make your code play nicer with designer tools like Expression Blend. Overall, I think the authors did a great job!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book rocks!, October 3, 2008

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

This book has what is very hard to find with such new material as WPF... good working examples. I truely believe the the chapter on user and owner controls more than pays for the book, although the book offers much more.
Apress rates this book Beginner-Intermediate. For me, I don't think I could have understood this book 6 months ago, but after working with WPF for about a year now I find it extremely easy to read and very informative.

I found direct answers to problems that I have had over my last 6 week project, and know that if this book was out last month I could have cut 2 weeks out of that project with ease.

Back to user controls (again, this is not the only good about the book... it just what I'm focusing on right now). The chapter offers not only good examples, but insight from the authors on how to make your new control work well with others that would want to restyle it. Another section shows you how to know if your in delevopment mode so as to change it's look when in Blend if required. All in all a pretty thourgh coverage.

One thing I'd like to say, as I think this might bug some people. There is a fair amount of duplicate code in the book, as there are times that the same code really does express more than one idea, and can be reused in other sections (or even the same section at times.)

I actually agree with the author's desision to duplicate the code instead of referencing me to other sections in the book. I can keep my train of thought where it should be, and don't have to keep flipping back a few chapters as in some other books. Even with the dupicate code, there are other functions added if appropriate.

Of the examples I have read, I find them to be concise, and to accurately portray the idea the authors are describing. They do not attempt to be more than they need to be, but are strong enough to cover more than the bare minimium.

Congratulations on a job well done.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Love it, December 16, 2008

By	Tor Thorbergsen (Oslo, Norway) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Much like the old [...] Tips and Tricks book, this book gave me recepies for doing specific things.

It gets me over a lot of hurdles.
(I need to reread the contents section again every now and again so that I remember that there is solutions to these problems.)

Very practical.