I recently read Programming Windows Presentation Foundation from O’Reilly Media. The book was written using WinFX Beta 1. Since the writing of the book, there have been some changes to WinFX including a name change to .NET 3.0. Some of these framework changes will mean a few modifications to the examples in the book in order for them to work properly. For the majority of examples the changes are not extensive. Although the version used in the writing of the book is not the current version, the concepts in the book have not changed and provide an excellent introduction to Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).
The book is not an introduction to programming. An assumption is made that the reader has previous knowledge of programming in .NET and C#. Starting with the first chapter, the reader is thrown into the world of WPF with the oh-so-important “Hello World” example, aptly renamed “Hello WPF”. The first chapter gives the reader a good overview of XAML followed by a brief glimpse of what will be covered in the remaining chapters. Each topic is covered briefly in the first chapter, then in more detail in its corresponding chapter.
The book has 10 chapters covering topics from layout and graphics to binding and resources with the final chapter covering ClickOnce Deployment. Throughout the book, the author does a good job of drawing similarities to programming in the current versions of .NET.
Weighing in at a little over 400 pages, it is not possible to cover every facet of WPF. However the author does a fairly thorough job covering each chapter. Enough detail is provided so that the reader gains a good beginning knowledge of the topic and can build on it themselves.
All in all the book is a great resource for a developer who wants an introduction into .NET 3.0 and WPF. Following the examples in the book will give a developer wanting to begin learning about WPF a great head start. Even if the reader is not interested in modifying the examples to get them to work correctly in the latest version of .NET 3.0, this book provides a good reference to the new concepts being introduced in the next version of .NET.
_Thanks to IPSA Member Todd Miranda at Softech Development for submitting this book review._
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