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)

Combining controls

When we need to arrange a number of existing controls in a particular way, we typically use a UserControl object. This is why we normally use this type of control to build our Views. However, when we need to build a reusable control, such as an address control, we tend to separate these from our Views, by declaring them in a Controls folder and namespace within our Views project.

When declaring these reusable controls, it is customary to define Dependency Properties in the code behind and as long as there is no business-related functionality in the control, it is also OK to use the code behind to handle events. If the control is business-related, then we can use a View Model, as we do with normal Views. Let's take a look at an example of an address control:

<UserControl x:Class=
  "CompanyName.ApplicationName.Views.Controls.AddressControl" 
  xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" 
  xmlns:x="http://schemas...