WPF Control Development Unleashed: Building Advanced User Experiences

WPF Control Development Unleashed

Building Advanced User Experiences

In this book, two leading Windows Presentation Foundation experts give developers everything they need to build next-generation WPF applications–software that is more robust, usable, and compelling.

Drawing on their close ties with Microsoft’s WPF development team, Pavan Podila and Kevin Hoffman give you a clear, robust, and practical understanding of WPF, its underpinnings, its overall architecture, and its design philosophy. Podila and Hoffman introduce never-before-published WPF design patterns and support them with robust, real-world code examples–all presented in full color, just as they appear in Visual Studio.

The authors begin by explaining how to “think in WPF,” and then introduce powerful new techniques for everything from handling 3D layouts to creating game-like physics effects. Along the way, they offer in-depth coverage of data binding, building interactivity, and control development: three of WPF’s most challenging concepts. You’ll learn how to choose the right WPF features for every programming challenge, and use those features far more creatively and effectively.

If you want to build truly outstanding WPF applications, this is the book that will get you there.

• Master the patterns and techniques you need to build state-of-the-art WPF applications
• Write more powerful and effective applications that reflect a deep understanding of WPF’s design philosophy
• Learn how WPF has evolved, and take full advantage of its growing sophistication
• Make the most of advanced declarative programming techniques
• Leverage IScrollInfo, virtualization, control theming, and other complex features
• Build more powerful interactivity into your WPF applications
• Create more visual software with 3D elements, custom animations, and shader effects
• Optimize WPF application performance in real-world environments
• Master design patterns for organizing your controls more effectively

Category: .NET Programming / WPF

Covers: Windows Presentation Foundation

User Level: Intermediate—Advanced

Pavan Podila, Architect at NYC’s Liquidnet Holdings, has worked extensively with many leading UI technologies, including WPF/Silverlight, Flash/Flex/AIR, and DHTML. In the past, he has worked with Java Swing, Eclipse SWT, and TrollTech/Nokia Qt. His primary interests include 2D/3D graphics, data visualization, UI architecture, and computational art. He created FluidKit (http://fluidkit.codeplex.com), an open-source WPF library of controls such as ElementFlow, TransitionPresenter, etc. He is a Microsoft MVP for Client App Dev and blogs actively at http://blog.pixelingene.com.

Kevin Hoffman got his first computer, a Commodore VIC-20, when he was 10 years old and has been hopelessly addicted to programming ever since. He has written desktop applications, web applications, distributed enterprise applications, VoIP software, and pretty much everything else in between. He is currently a .NET Architect in New England building large-scale, next-generation web applications.