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)

To get the most out of this book

This book contains many code examples, with the complete source code being available for download from GitHub. In order to run the code, you will need the following prerequisites:

  • Visual Studio 2019
  • Version 4.8 of the .NET Framework must be installed

If you do not already have these, they can both be downloaded and installed for free:

The complete source code that accompanies the book can be downloaded from https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Mastering-Windows-Presentation-Foundation-Second-Edition.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

  1. Log in or register at www.packt.com.
  2. Select the Support tab.
  3. Click on Code Downloads.
  4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the onscreen instructions.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:

  • WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows
  • Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
  • 7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Mastering-Windows-Presentation-Foundation-Second-Edition. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781838643416_ColorImages.pdf

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, path names, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "You could then declare a BaseDragDropManager class to be used in the DragDropProperties class."

A block of code is set as follows:

public string Name
{
  get { return name; }
  set
  {
    if (name != value)
    {
      name = value;
      NotifyPropertyChanged("Name");
    }
  }
}

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

System.Windows.Data Error: 17 : Cannot get 'Item[]' value (type  'ValidationError') from '(Validation.Errors)' (type  'ReadOnlyObservableCollection`1').  BindingExpression:Path=(Validation.Errors)[0].ErrorContent;  DataItem='TextBox' (Name=''); target element is 'TextBox' (Name='');  target property is 'ToolTip' (type 'Object')  ArgumentOutOfRangeException:'System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException:  Specified argument was out of the range of valid values.

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "The Cancel button has been declared in the second row and column."

Warnings or important notes appear like this.
Tips and tricks appear like this.