Customer Reviews

Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed (WPF)

5 star:		(63)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If, as a software developer, you have spent years looking at the visual promises of Vista, really wanting to dive in and create those next generation, media-rich interfaces, but didn't have a clear indicator of where to begin - now you do. Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed is your one-stop answer to discovering what WPF is, learning basic and advanced controls, and building WPF applications.

Without a lot of dry history, and in a full-color presentation that makes comprehending what you're reading much more efficient, you are given a very complete coverage of controls, control manipulation, data binding, animation, and other multimedia objects. Throughout the text you are given not only code snippets, but illustrations of what the finished product should resemble, sidebar Tips sections, sidebar Warnings sections, and sidebar "Digging Deeper", really solidifying the information presented not only in the initial component coverage, but the follow-up WFP application development.

Hands down, for adding WPF to your development skills, this is the title you need.

It's a good buy.

The book as a package is a good reference for WPF. However, absolute beginners will have a difficult time through it, or at least I did. The first few chapters left me with a headache. I persisted and I can say I now have a firm understanding of WPF. Overall its a good buy.

Pros:
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1. Loads and loads of examples.
2. Full color graphics, helps one to quickly grasp the concepts being illustrated.
3. Easy reference. Quite easy to reference

Cons:
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1.Beginners be warned. Just keep reading you will understand later on.
2. The Author pulls things out of the hat and starts using them before explaining what they are. If he had explained them immediately after, it would be okay; but he doesn't, until a few chapters later. The chapter that was supposed to introduce XAML ended up confusing me, only after reading half the book did I grasp the concepts of the XAML chapter.
3.The general use of language, too many brackets, too many references to past and later chapters within the text; it is distracting.

Overall I would advice you to buy the book.

Excellent book, very well designed, organized and the colors make a huge difference. This is the best book on WPF I have read (I've read 5 so far). the examples are simple and concise (and they work! which is not always the case with books published so close to the product release). Also, it is amazing how much of WPF this book covers, probably the most extensive coverage of the WPF capabilities. Perfect for intermediate to advanced programmer. Again I was surprised how having color code and illustations made such a difference. A Must have!!

I have been developing in WPF for 18 months and wish I had this long ago. There are things in this book that I can't even find in the documentation for WPF. There are a number of subtleties in WPF that Adam usually starts describing with "Some people are surprised to find...". The breakout boxes in the book also deal with some of the subtleties. WPF is a whole new paradigm for Windows programming and it may have a large learning curve, especially for us old C++ Win32ers. This book will help you through, answer many questions and shorten that curve considerably. This paradigm will forever change the way Windows apps are built. I cannot see myself going back except for very specialized reasons. The other WPF books are good and I have them but this book is simply outstanding in its breadth. I cannot recommend enough.

My title is such because Adam's book reminds me of nice Nova episodes on PBS. When I first cracked it open, it felt familiar, inviting, ready to tell me a story with a deliberate plot that both inform and deeply satisfy. Mirroring the industry a bit, over the years dev books have gotten thicker and two-toned and with it the ratio of useful knowledge imparted spartan. As if being first to market and being paid by the words per page was all that mattered these days, say like cable news. In other words, very little thought around quality and how well received the knowledge is.

Actually, because it was a SAMS book, I didn't even take it off the shelf the first go-around, but because a colleague praised it, I gave it a 2nd look. SAMS scored big this time, and hopefully the industry will take heed and benefit. With Adam's text, the great art of writing and telling a story, down to finessing the words and imagery so it's just right is back for dev books; we're taken through many around-a-corner, under-the-hood turns, subplots that come together, guided by a masterfully woven storyboard (as it were) that, at the end of each chapter enlightens you with relevance and true insight.

Better yet Unleashed gets the creative/imaginary juices going, really explains why WPF matters, empowering you to just rock with it.

Adam Nathan's "Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed" is one of the best treatments on what is a very large subject area that I've read. Adam presents the material in a way that anticipates your questions and will have you itching to get at the keyboard to try some of this out. This is no small trick, there's a huge amount of information in this book - but Adam's depth of experience and enthusiam for the subject is very seductive. What comes across in the text is that Adam has been using this technology "in anger" for some time - which means for a relatively new technology this is as definitive a treatment as you're likely to find at this point.

The we come to the physical presentation of the book. Without a shadow of a doubt this is the book that all subsequent books on user interface and graphics APIs will be compared against. Rather than have half a dozen color pages in the middle the text the whole book is printed in full color. With hindsight it seems so obvious - but serious kudos I think have to go to Adam and SAMS for taking this step. I don't doubt authors who've got WPF books still in writing will be taking a long hard think about their physical presentation of the material.

WPF being such a huge topic I'd recommend reading this book along side Charles Petzold's "Applications = Code + Markup". No one book is ever going to be able to cover the whole WPF in any kind of depth. But between the two of them Adam Nathan and Charles Petzold speak with an authority and enthusiam that makes learning this stuff a please. WPF really is a technology that benefits from differing viewpoints and author backgrounds - and these two books give you a great perspective on the subject.

It seems like a never-ending task to keep up with Microsoft's latest and greatest application design software. But such is the life of a software developer... I got a chance to look at Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed by Adam Nathan, and I'm impressed on a couple of levels. This is how I wish all software books were written and published...

Content:
Part 1 - Background: Why Windows Presentation Foundation?; XAML Demystified; Important New Concepts in WPF
Part 2 - Building a WPF Application: Introducing WPF's Controls; Sizing, Positioning, and Transforming Elements; Layout with Panels; Structuring and Deploying an Application
Part 3 - Features for Professional Developers: Resources; Data Binding; Styles, Templates, Skins, and Themes
Part 4 - Going Beyond Today's Applications with Rich Media: 2D Graphics; 3D Graphics; Animations; Audio, Video, Speech, and Documents
Part 5 - Advanced Topics: Interoperability with Win32, Windows Forms, and ActiveX; User Controls and Custom Controls; Layout with Custom Panels
Part 6 - Appendix: Helpful Tools
Index

Nathan aims the book at developers focused on user interfaces using, of course, the Windows Presentation Foundation software. It's meant to span the continuum from .NET newbies to experienced WPF developers. I can say he succeeded from the newbie perspective. I came away with a good basic understanding of WPF, how it works, and an idea as to all the features that can be used to create very nice applications from the user interface perspective. I appreciated the historical coverage of how we got to this point, and it set the table for everything that followed.

Beyond the content, the style and layout of the book was phenomenal. The most obvious difference is that this is a full-color book. All the code samples are color-coded, and more importantly, all the screen shot examples are as they would appear on your monitor. While this is important for user interface books, it's critical for a book like this. Many of the subtleties of WPF involve things that don't translate well to black and white print, like transparent windowing. Having those examples in color allows you to understand exactly what can be expected. Add in the numerous sidebars of tips, faqs, warnings, and so forth, and you've got a book that can take you from beginner to journeyman in short order.

I really wish more development books would go to full-color printing. It can take a very good book and make it truly outstanding, like this one...

I have been developing Windows software since 1994 and have had my share of good resources and poor resources. This book is amazing! The wording in the book is very similar to someone talking you through the entire WPF platform. Examples are excellent and so is the "Tips" and additional information. The author anticipates the user reactions specifically by seasoned developers and addresses them. I am reading this book like a novel. I am on page 356 and I can't put it down. This is in my top 3 developer books, if not #1. If you have any thoughts on going down the WPF path, start here.

At the very least, the book publisher's decision to make this a color-rich book makes it a top notch seller. There are LOTS of XML examples and coloring really does help.
I found the analogies quite good and the flow very natural. Have not finished it yes, but like what I'm reading so far.
If you plan on learning WPF for the first time, I'd recommend this as the first purchase, for sure.

Roy.

I ordered this book and Pro WPF in C# 2008 (Mathew MacDonald) at the same time. I read WPF Unleashed first because I saw the reviews on Amazon.com. I thought, wow, great book. Then I read Pro WPF in C# 2008.

I found Pro WPF in C# 2008 to be a much better book than WPF Unleashed. It's thicker, has more content, and dives much deeper. It also covers .Net 3.5 because it's newer.

Don't get me wrong, they are both excellent books and I recommend them both. But if you really want to understand core WPF concepts, Pro WPF in C# 2008 is the better choice.