User Interfaces in VB .NET: Windows Forms and Custom Controls Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. Edition

by Matthew MacDonald (Author)

11 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-1590590447

ISBN-10: 9781590590447

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In a new approach, this is a closely focused work that gives you the insight of experienced developers about a single aspect of .NET programming. You will find all the ingredients you can use to design state-of-the-art application interfaces. You will also delve into entirely new topics like custom control design and GDI+, the next-generation painting framework for Windows. The author goes beyond the basics and combines user interface design principles with practical guidelines for creating the next generation of software applications.
The author covers three areas: 1) an overview of how to design elegant user interfaces the average user can understand; 2) a comprehensive examination of the user interface controls and classes in .NET. and 3) A tutorial with best practices and design tips for coding user interfaces and integrating help.

About the Author

Matthew MacDonald is an author,educator, and MCSD developer who has a passion for emerging technologies. He isthe author of more than a dozen books about .NET programming. In a dimly-remembered past life, he studied English literature and theoretical physics.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1590590449
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Apress; Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. edition (July 9, 2002)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 580 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781590590447
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1590590447
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.55 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.3 x 1.4 x 9.1 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,625,719 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #536 in Visual Basic Programming (Books)
- #588 in Computer Programming Structured Design
- #739 in PC Hardware

Customer Reviews:
11 ratings

About the author

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Matthew MacDonald

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Matthew MacDonald is a science and technology writer with well over a dozen books to his name. He’s particularly known for his books about building websites, which include a do-it-from-scratch tutorial (Creating a Website: The Missing Manual), a look at cutting-edge HTML5 (HTML5: The Missing Manual), and a WordPress primer (WordPress: The Missing Manual). He’s also written a series of books about programming on and off the Web with .NET, teaches programming at Ryerson University, and is a three-time Microsoft MVP.

In everyday life, Matthew is endlessly amazed by the odd, unusual, and just plain bonkers workings of the natural world. Those who don’t have tech problems to solve can check out Matthew MacDonald’s science books, where he debugs the quirks and complexities of the human brain (Your Brain: The Missing Manual) and body (Your Body: The Missing Manual). Both books include a mash-up of full-color pictures, trivia, and philosophical head-scratchers. Matthew lives in Toronto, with his wife and two daughters.

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John Harpur

Approach with caution

Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2003

Verified Purchase

This book is about the details of form building. It is not about the details of backending a form to a database or website. It has a very specific remit and if you are not an experienced VB.Net programmer you could be badly caught out here. This is not a book to cut your UI building teeth on. There are introductory texts to do that. It is also not a UI design book. So don't expect lashings of advice on usability theory, design and test. They are just not here.
The focus on the book is on form controls creation and the various arcana in .Net that support them. Many interesting and useful topics are raised in the book (there is an overlap between some of these and the coverage in other books, e.g. MDi and GDI+). However, the extent to which they will generalise for the 'average' programmer is another question. I am not convinced that the book has sufficent novel content over an above other more general texts of the market.
Unless you specifically need detail about form controls, form splitters, personalised system trays etc, this book may be overkill. A good deal of topics in the book is covered in Deitel and Deitel (and more besides),and Balena. So if you are learning VB.Net be careful in your choice.

15 people found this helpful

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D. Strickland

Easy to follow and sufficiently detailed

Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2003

Verified Purchase

For someone who has already used other languages for GUI design, this is a great book to get quickly up to speed in the .Net view of Windows forms. It didn't cover everything in enough detail for me but good enough to get me started. I would of liked more on data grid (how about a whole book on it as it's complex enough) and context menus but I eventually figured it out on my own. I could go for an advanced version of this book too.

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Michael Lipow

Extremely clear and useful

Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2012

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I thought this book was extremely worthwhile. The writing style was enjoyable to read and the topics covered were explained very clearly. Though it doesn't cover every deatail of every control , it will give the intermediate programmer the knowledge (about topics like the treeview, listview, GDI+ and custom controls) to take their programs to the next level. Unlike many other books (most of which are for the very beginning or very advanced programmer) this book has just the right amount of detail (ie quite a bit without overwhelming the reader with minutia) I'll definitely be using several of these techniques in my programs from now on.

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Amazon Customer

Great book, just what you need to know

Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2002

It is interesting to compare this book to the one by Petzold which I also regard as a "must buy" - but for different reasons. Macdonald's book is much more manageable than Petzold but still seemed to contain everything I wanted to know about Windows forms.
Petzold on the other hand is roughly twice as long and thus far more complete. Petzold is also perhaps a slightly more interesting writer than MacDonald - but then I am not sure everybody needs the details provided by Petzold...
In sum if you can afford only one book and need the definitive reference, get Petzold as it is *so* complete. However if you want a book you will turn to on a day to day basis and likey read from cover to cover get Macdonald.

4 people found this helpful

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i see the world

Matthew MacDonald never disappoints..!

Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2002

I were undecided whether to buy "Windows Forms Programming with C# by Erik Brown" but then waited for this book. I totally enjoyed reading his ASP.NET Complete Reference book, know his "The book of VB.NET" is extremely good. His other ASP.NET in a nutshell book also got good reviews and i am eagerly waiting for his New Rider's ".NET Distributed Applications: Integrating Web Services and Remoting". So far he is one of my most favorite author other than Andrew Troelsen, Jeffrey Richter and Jeff Prosise - so knowledgeable and clear..!. Anybody who has read any other book written by MacDonald so far knows what i am talking.
Almost every visual basic.net control is explained with utmost clarity with their usage, examples and even design. Covers everything you will ever need to become a rich client front-end .NET developer..!

5 people found this helpful

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Amjad

Comprehensive Guidelines on .NET Controls

Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2003

I found this book to be excellent. It isn't 100% comprehensive, but it is full of real, practical code and suggestions for using controls. It's the only book I've found that dealt with the treeview, listview, and imagelist in enough detail. Particularly noteworthy are the descriptions on how to create custom controls based on these controls that have built-in application meaning. For example, the book explains how to create a treeview that has a hard-coded "structure" and exposes custom methods for adding/navigating your type of data. Similar advice is given with validation, drag-and-drop, form inheritance, MDI workspaces, and data binding strategies. Basically, the book is a solid guide to mastering .NET controls. Note that this book isn't the best place to learn GDI+. Although there are two excellent chapters on the subject and the basic charting control, both Apress and Wrox provide dedicated GDI+ books that focus more closely on custom drawing.
Probably the best example in the book is the document-view architecture with the print preview--simple, elegant, and worth the trouble. Overall, high-content, well-written and genuinely **USEFUL**!

5 people found this helpful

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Thomas Nelson

Great book

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2004

I'm a fairly new programmer in vb.net(finished vb.net II) and I found this book to be VERY good. Yes it is very theory intensive but the examples it gives are fairly straight forward and if you aren't the world's best programmer they show you how to make controls to make some really slick looking programs.
There are a few .net 1.0 examples that will not work in the new 1.1 (notably the xp theme visualizations) but this book is well worth it if you are interested in making some "professional" looking forms for your application.

One person found this helpful

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Mark

Exactly what I was looking for

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2002

I have bought a whole bunch of books about VB.NET only to find that they all gloss over Windows Forms and don't teach you very much about making rich Windows client applications with this very capable language. This book gives in-depth coverage of all of the major Windows Forms controls and lots of good advice for how to use them to present good user interfaces as well a comprehensive chapters on user and custom controls. I highly recommend it.

15 people found this helpful

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B. Eaton

Useful but not entirely comprehensive

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 10, 2005

Verified Purchase

If you're starting out with VB.NET and haven't created any custom controls yet then this is a good place to start. Otherwise it's probably contains a lot of information you already know.
I bought it so I could get to grips with design time support for custom controls and also to extend the datagrid. On the first score it was very helpful, on the second it didn't do too well. It does have some interesting ideas about creating multi-tier applications and structuring projects, but otherwise it left me feeling like I hadn't actually learnt that much.
It was published in 2002 and that is fairly evident with a lot of the content. Unless you're really on the low rungs of the VB.NET ladder I would recommend looking for something else.

2 people found this helpful

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User Interfaces in VB .NET: Windows Forms and Custom Controls Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. Edition

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Matthew MacDonald

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