Book Image

Mastering Windows Presentation Foundation - Second Edition

By : Sheridan Yuen
Book Image

Mastering Windows Presentation Foundation - Second Edition

By: Sheridan Yuen

Overview of this book

Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) provides a rich set of libraries and APIs for developers to create engaging user experiences. This book features a wide range of examples, from simple to complex, to demonstrate how to develop enterprise-grade applications with WPF. This updated second edition of Mastering Windows Presentation Foundation starts by introducing the benefits of using the Model-View-View Model (MVVM) software architectural pattern with WPF, then moves on, to explain how best to debug our WPF applications. It explores application architecture, and we learn how to build the foundation layer of our applications. It then demonstrates data binding in detail, and examines the various built-in WPF controls and a variety of ways in which we can customize them to suit our requirements. We then investigate how to create custom controls, for when the built-in functionality in WPF cannot be adapted for our needs. The latter half of the book deals with polishing our applications, using practical animations, stunning visuals and responsive data validation. It then moves on, to look at improving application performance, and ends with tutorials on several methods of deploying our applications.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)

Summary

In this chapter, we have discovered what the MVVM architectural pattern is and the benefits of using it when developing WPF applications. We're now in a better position to decide which applications to use it with and which not to. We started looking into the various new ways of communicating between the various components of this pattern and also investigated the most common ways of organizing our source code. We are now ready to start setting out our own application structures.

In the next chapter, before we properly get started building our application, we'll look at several methods of the sometimes tricky task of debugging our data bound values. We'll discover other useful tips and tricks that we can use to help us to iron out any problems that may occur in our applications so that once we start building, we'll be able to avoid wasting time with problems that may arise.