Any good books on WPF? I doubt it

R

raylopez99

Took a quick look at WPF, wrote a hello world program, noted it's lack
of a decent API (for example, no lightning bolt to add Event Handlers,
and every control in WPF does not have as many event handlers as in
Winforms it seems, nor as many extension methods / properties, for
example, in WPF a label has no '.Text' extension method or property,
so you cannot write "label1.Text = ABC".

I also note "Blend (TM)" which is a API/user interface for WPF, just
came out three months ago, further reinforcing that WPF is betaware.

But given that, like a first round draft choice who shows 'great
promise' in theory (Ryan Leaf anybody? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Leaf),
does anybody recommend any decent books on WPF or is it still too
early?

RL
 
A

Alberto Poblacion

raylopez99 said:
But given that, like a first round draft choice who shows 'great
promise' in theory (Ryan Leaf anybody?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Leaf),
does anybody recommend any decent books on WPF or is it still too
early?
Click to expand...

I like "Applications = Code + Markup" by Charles Petzold, published by
Microsoft Press. Warning: it's a thousand pages long!.
 
R

raylopez99

I like "Applications = Code + Markup" by Charles Petzold, published by
Microsoft Press. Warning: it's a thousand pages long!.
Click to expand...

Thanks. The Petzold book, while good, got worse reviews than the book
by Chris Sells, since Petzold writes for complete newbies while Sells
assumes some familiarity with C#, so I bought the Sells book.

Do you like WPF compared to WinForms? I'm curious to find out.

RL
 
K

Kristoffer Persson

I would recommend Adam Nathan's "Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed"
(Sam's). It explains WPF from the ground up, using many examples and pictures
(in colour even). Since WPF is completely different compared to winforms, I
think the way the book starts with the basics is extremely valuable.

- Kristoffer -
 
J

JDeats

Took a quick look at WPF, wrote a hello world program, noted it's lack
of a decent API (for example, no lightning bolt to add Event Handlers,
and every control in WPF does not have as many event handlers as in
Winforms it seems, nor as many extension methods / properties, for
example, in WPF a label has no '.Text' extension method or property,
so you cannot write "label1.Text = ABC".

I also note "Blend (TM)" which is a API/user interface for WPF, just
came out three months ago, further reinforcing that WPF is betaware.

But given that, like a first round draft choice who shows 'great
promise' in theory (Ryan Leaf anybody?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Leaf),
does anybody recommend any decent books on WPF or is it still too
early?

RL
Click to expand...

I highly recommend Chris Sells book on WPF. In fact, I highly
recommend buying any .NET related book Chris Sells has authored or co-
authored. :)
 
R

raylopez99

JDeats said:
I highly recommend Chris Sells book on WPF. In fact, I highly
recommend buying any .NET related book Chris Sells has authored or co-
authored. :)
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm using Windows Forms 2.0 Programming (2006) by Sells and
Weinhardt to learn WinForms now.

RL
 
R

Rad [Visual C# MVP]

I would recommend Adam Nathan's "Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed"
(Sam's). It explains WPF from the ground up, using many examples and pictures
(in colour even). Since WPF is completely different compared to winforms, I
think the way the book starts with the basics is extremely valuable.

- Kristoffer -

raylopez99 said:
[17 quoted lines suppressed]
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I also highly recommend Adam Nathan's book
 
P

Pavel Minaev

Took a quick look at WPF, wrote a hello world program, noted it's lack
of a decent API (for example, no lightning bolt to add Event Handlers,
Click to expand...

"Lightning bolts" do not have anything to do with API, it's an IDE
deficiency. If you're using VS2008, I highly recommend you to install
SP1 - it has some improvements in this area (though still not as many
as I'd like - WinForms designer still feels more polished). If you use
VS2005 for WPF development, then the only advice I can give to you -
just don't. WPF designer for VS2005 was effectively a pre-beta
version, and has since been discontinued. If you want to do proper WPF
development, you _need_ VS2008.
and every control in WPF does not have as many event handlers as in
Winforms it seems, nor as many extension methods / properties, for
example, in WPF a label has no '.Text' extension method or property,
so you cannot write "label1.Text = ABC".
Click to expand...

That's because a WPF Label inherits from ContentControl, which has
Content property, which does (roughly) the same thing.

By the way, it's really about the fundamentals - the WPF content model
- so you probably haven't gotten far in the WPF book you've bought.
I also note "Blend (TM)" which is a API/user interface for WPF, just
came out three months ago, further reinforcing that WPF is betaware.
Click to expand...

Expression Blend _2.0_ was released in May 2008. The original version,
1.0, was released in November 2007. Anyway, it's really a designer-
oriented tool; a developer is much better off using VS2008.
 
R

raylopez99

deficiency. If you're using VS2008, I highly recommend you to install
SP1 - it has some improvements in this area (though still not as many
as I'd like - WinForms designer still feels more polished). If you use
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm using XP for the OS but I'll install the VS2008 SP1
anyway.

By the way, it's really about the fundamentals - the WPF content model
- so you probably haven't gotten far in the WPF book you've bought.
Click to expand...

No, I have not. I have not even opened the WPF book yet. But as I'm
also reading through an ASP.NET 2.0 book, I notice what I think the
WPF model will be--it's called "Code Separation", where the code for
instructions and the data are kept in two separate files (and
presumeably two classes, so one class will not contain any data at all
maybe? Like myObject.List() will not have myObject.Function(<T>List),
but I'm just guessing--I'll find out soon).

RL
 
J

Jim H

raylopez99 said:
Took a quick look at WPF, wrote a hello world program, noted it's lack
of a decent API (for example, no lightning bolt to add Event Handlers,
and every control in WPF does not have as many event handlers as in
Winforms it seems, nor as many extension methods / properties, for
example, in WPF a label has no '.Text' extension method or property,
so you cannot write "label1.Text = ABC".

I also note "Blend (TM)" which is a API/user interface for WPF, just
came out three months ago, further reinforcing that WPF is betaware.

But given that, like a first round draft choice who shows 'great
promise' in theory (Ryan Leaf anybody?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Leaf),
does anybody recommend any decent books on WPF or is it still too
early?

RL
Click to expand...

"Pro WPF in C# 2008" by Matthew McDonald. I'm reading it now and like it.

WPF is a different model so you won't see the familiar x.Text and things
like that. I'm finding it very interesting how and why they wired it up
like they did.

Blend, and Blend 2.0 are more for designers not programmers. Supposed to be
one of the strengths of WPF is separation of visual design from
implementation code. Lets a graphic designer modify the look and feel
without affecting code. I got Blend for my sister, she's a graphic design
artist, hoping she could help out with the look of my UIs. I haven't gone
that far yet though. I'm only about 200 pages in, but it's one of the few
books I've read from the beginning.

jim
 
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