Pro WPF in C# 2008: Windows Presentation Foundation with .NET 3.5 [Paperback]

The Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) blends application user interface, documents, and media content to provide richer control, design, and development of the visual aspects of Windows programs.

In this book, author Matthew MacDonald shows you how WPF really works. His no-nonsense, practical advice will get you quickly and easily building high-quality WPF applications. MacDonald takes 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 C# 2008.

In this book, author Matthew MacDonald shows you how WPF really works. His no-nonsense, practical advice will get you quickly and easily building high-quality WPF applications.

When .NET first appeared, it introduced a small avalanche of new technologies. There was a whole new way to write web applications (ASP.NET), a whole new way to connect to databases (ADO.NET), new typesafe languages (C# and VB .NET), and a managed runtime (the CLR). Not least among these new technologies was Windows Forms, a library of classes for building W- dows applications. Although Windows Forms is a mature and full-featured toolkit, its hardwired to essential bits of Windows plumbing that havent changed much in the past ten years. Most significantly, Windows Forms relies on the Windows API to create the visual appearance of standard user interface elements such as buttons, text boxes, check boxes, and so on. As a result, these ing- dients are essentially uncustomizable. For example, if you want to create a stylish glow button you need to create a custom c- trol and paint every aspect of the button (in all its different states) using a lower-level drawing model. Even worse, ordinary windows are carved up into distinct regions, with each control getting its own piece of real estate. As a result, theres no good way for the painting in lc/