Pro WPF with VB 2008: Windows Presentation Foundation with .NET...

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 1000 pages
• Published by: Apress March 24, 2008
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1590599624
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1590599624
• Book Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 2.2 inches
• Weighs: 3.7 pounds

Product Description


Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation provides the foundation for building applications and high–quality user experiences in Windows Vista. WPF blends application user interface, documents, and media content to provide richer control, design, and development of the visual aspects of Windows programs.

Author Matthew MacDonald shows you how WPF really works. His no–nonsense, practical advice will get you building high–quality WPF applications quickly and easily. MacDonald will take you through a thorough investigation of the more advanced aspects of WPF, and its relation to other elements of the WinFX stack and the .NET Framework 3.5, to complete your understanding of WPF and VB 2008.

WPF’s functionality extends to support for Tablet PCs and other forms of input device, and provides a more modern imaging and printing pipeline, accessibility and UI automation infrastructure, data–driven UI and visualization, as well as the integration points for weaving the application experience into the Windows shell.

What you’ll learn

• WPF basics: XAML, layout, control essentials, and data flow
• WPF applications: Navigation, commands, localization, and deployment
• Advanced controls: Custom controls, menus, toolbars, and trees
• WPF documents: Text layout, printing, and document packaging
• Graphics and multimedia: Drawing shapes, sound and video, animation, geometric transformations, and imaging

Who is this book for?

Developers encountering WPF and .NET 3.5 for the first time in their professional lives.

About the Apress Pro Series

The Apress Pro series books are practical, professional tutorials to keep you on and moving up the professional ladder.

You have gotten the job, now you need to hone your skills in these tough competitive times. The Apress Pro series expands your skills and expertise in exactly the areas you need. Master the content of a Pro book, and you will always be able to get the job done in a professional development project. Written by experts in their field, Pro series books from Apress give you the hard–won solutions to problems you will face in your professional programming career.

Related Titles

• Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform, Fourth Edition
• Pro VB 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform, Third Edition
• Pro WPF in C# 2008: Windows Presentation Foundation with .NET 3.5, Second Edition
• Pro Silverlight 2

About The Author
Matthew MacDonald is an author, educator, and MCSD developer who has a passion for emerging technologies. He is a regular writer for developer journals such as Inside Visual Basic, ASPToday, and Hardcore Visual Studio .NET, and he's the author of several books about programming with .NET, including User Interfaces in VB .NET: Windows Forms and Custom Controls, The Book of VB .NET, and .NET Distributed Applications. In a dimly remembered past life, he studied English literature and theoretical physics. Send e-mail to him with praise, condemnation, and everything in between, to p2p@prosetech.com.

Reader Reviews
At last, someone has published a WPF book aimed at those of us who prefer to use Visual Basic for the code behind. This is another well-written and comprehensive piece of work from a widely respected author. Unsurprisingly, large chunks of content have been ported directly from his earlier WPF book, which was based on .NET 3.0 and has C# as the code behind. This makes complete sense as it is only the code behind aspects that need the different approach. Because this is based on WPF 3.5 though, there are some additional items, such as binding to a LINQ expression in Chapter 16. There is also a completely new additional Chapter 26, which deals with the topics of Multithreading and Add-Ins. I don't think Apress have the full chapter listing on their site yet (or at least I couldn't see it if they did). However, rest assured that the whole gamut of WPF topics is covered in this book, from Layout to Dependency Properties, Routed Events to Navigation - in fact everything from Animation to Z-Index. The author has a very useful list of links that you can simply click on to save you (mis)typing them yourself from the book. They are available from his site at www.prosetech.com. Downloadable samples are available from there also. In my opinion, you should buy this book for two reasons. First, it is an excellent, wide ranging, clear description of what you will need to know in order to get fully to grips with this exciting (but not always intuitive) technology. Second, there have been at least five WPF books published in the past year that have C# as the code behind. Publishers are in the business of selling books and they couldn't care less about whether C# or VB are "better". So I guess it's obvious that their stats show that they will sell more C# books. If you want to keep VB as a viable language, fully supported by authors and publishers, then the only way to ensure this is to make it worth their while to publish VB based books. So for either or both these reasons, I rate this book as one of the most worthwhile investments you can make if you are a VB developer (or student) and you want to fully embrace all the tempting offerings available in Windows Presentation Foundation.