Book Description

Your expert guide to designing and building dynamic user interfaces

Sharpen your application design and development skills using XAML—the declarative markup language used in Microsoft® Silverlight®, Windows® Presentation Foundation (WPF), and the Windows 8 Runtime APIs. Led by two XAML experts, you’ll learn practical ways to build rich, interactive user interfaces with data integration capabilities and support for multimedia, graphics, and animation. This hands-on guide is ideal for Microsoft .NET developers and web designers alike.

Discover how to:

• Control UI behavior and implement business logic with code-behind solutions
• Manage UI element positioning with the XAML layout system
• Use templates to customize UI elements—without affecting their functionality
• Apply different types of property and event systems in WPF and Silverlight
• Bind various kinds of data to your UI, and display them in the format you want
• Implement 2D and 3D vector graphics and animations
• Reuse control styles and properties to maintain consistency throughout your application

Table of Contents
Part I: XAML Basics
Chapter 1. Introducing XAML
Chapter 2. Object Elements and Attributes Download Now »

Book Description

If you want to build applications that take full advantage of Windows Vista’s new user interface capabilities, you need to learn Microsoft’s Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). This new edition, fully updated for the official release of .NET 3.0, is designed to get you up to speed on this technology quickly. By page 2, you’ll be writing a simple WPF application. By the end of Chapter 1, you’ll have taken a complete tour of WPF and its major elements.

WPF is the new presentation framework for Windows Vista that also works with Windows XP. It’s a cornucopia of new technologies, which includes a new graphics engine that supports 3-D graphics, animation, and more; an XML-based markup language, called XAML, for declaring the structure of your Windows UI; and a radical new model for controls.

This second edition includes new chapters on printing, XPS, 3-D, navigation, text and documents, along with a new appendix that covers Microsoft’s new WPF/E platform for delivering richer UI through standard web browsers — much like Adobe Flash. Content from the first edition has been significantly expanded and modified. Programming WPF includes:

• Scores of C# and XAML examples that show you what it takes to get a WPF application up and running, from a simple “Hello, Avalon” program to a tic-tac-toe game
• Insightful discussions of the powerful new programming styles that WPF brings to Windows development, especially its new model for controls Download Now »

Book Description

Applied WPF 4 in Context sets the standard for leveraging the latest Windows user interface technology in your business applications.

Using this book, you’ll learn how to implement world-class WPF solutions in a real-world line of business applications, developing the code from the ground up, and understand how to apply best development practices and related .NET products and technologies to your solution.  You will cover designing and developing the application, testing and debugging, data access, reporting, and applying styles and themes to enhance the look of the user interface, all using WPF in a very practical, eminently useful context. You’ll create asynchronous and parallel code, and learn how to distribute the application’s components using Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). You’ll also apply the Model-View-ViewModel pattern, again in a real-world WPF application.

Elegant and functional WPF applications are easier to create than ever before with Applied WPF 4 in Context.

What you’ll learn

• Learn XAML (the Extensible Application Markup Language) through hands-on practice.
• See how to integrate Windows Forms, DirectX, ActiveX, or other non-WPF technologies into your WPF application.
• Discover how to integrate WPF with report writers such as Crystal Reports and SQL Server Reporting Services. Download Now »

Book Description

This book has one primary goal: to get you working in Expression Blend 4 effectively using the features and functionality of the tool.

This book is not about XAML, not about code nor explicit work flows. It is about simply dragging, dropping, drawing, and defining the experience and vision for a user interface and rich interactive experience.

You will learn how to work with the core features of Blend, edit Styles and Templates, and more importantly, understand what they all mean. You will also work in detail with Parts, States, and Behaviors to understand how collectively they can provide your solutions advanced functionality without the need for code or hand-cranked XAML.

Animations and Storyboards will allow you to bring life to your vision, as will working with data efficiently and learning how to create and manage Resources.

In short, this book will give you the answers to many questions asked in forums by new and experienced users alike.

Microsoft Expression Blend 4 Unleashed is a stunning, full-color resource with hundreds of screenshots and informative figure references. It has also been authored sequentially, to enable you to build your knowledge step-by-step and gain confidence through repartition and fearlessness in discovery.

Detailed information on how to… Download Now »

Book Description

Bring your app ideas to life—with guidance from a Windows programming legend

Get started building your own apps and utilities for Windows Phone 7—expertly guided by award-winning author Charles Petzold. Focusing on Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 and the C# language, you’ll learn how to extend your existing skills to this new mobile platform—mastering the core tools and techniques you need to get productive quickly. As always, Charles brings a unique combination of pragmatism and inspiration to his instruction—along with a wealth of hands-on examples.

NOTE: This book is the printed, Silverlight-focused edition of Programming Windows Phone 7, which is available as a free eBook from the Microsoft Download Center. A Microsoft XNA®-focused edition is also available for sale in print (ISBN 978-0-7356-5669-7). The Microsoft eBook covers both Silverlight and XNA in one volume.

Discover how to:

• Customize page navigation and layout
• Know when to use code vs. XAML markup
• Capture and embed bitmaps, balancing performance issues
• Support multi-touch input—including tap, drag, flick, and pinch Download Now »

Book Description

Silverlight 4 has the potential to revolutionize the way we build business applications. With its flexibility, web deployment, cross-platform capabilities, rich .NET language support on the client, rich user interface control set, small runtime, and more, it comes close to the perfect platform in which to build business applications. It’s a very powerful technology, and despite its relative youth, it’s moving forward at a rapid pace and is gaining widespread adoption.

This book will guide you through the process of designing and developing enterprise-strength business applications in Silverlight 4 and C#. You will learn how to take advantage of the power of Silverlight to develop rich and robust business applications, from getting started to deployment, and everything in between.

In particular, this book will serve developers who want to learn how to design business applications, and tackle the issues that you’ll face, and how to resolve them. Chris Anderson demonstrates his experience through a candid presentation of how to approach real-life implementation decisions.

With this book in hand, you will

• Create a fully functional business application in Silverlight
• Discover how to satisfy all of the common requirements that most business applications share

Download Now »