Windows Presentation Foundation is Microsoft’s newest API for creating Windows applications. It gives the programmer the ability to produce dazzling, graphics–rich programs easily without having to delve into the messy details of the graphics subsystem.

To use this power, however, the programmer must learn new concepts for laying out pages and displaying graphics. Illustrated WPF presents these concepts clearly and visually—making them easier to understand and retain.

What you’ll learn

• The important new concepts underlying programming in WPF, including the visual tree, the logical tree, dependency properties, and routed events.
• The XAML markup language and how it is used to create and initialize objects in WPF. You’ll also learn how XAML and C# code work together to producing stunning programs.
• How to lay out screens and graphics using WPF’s various panel types, and how to achieve a consistent visual appearance throughout a program, using resources, styles, and templates.
• How to bind visual elements to data sources.
• How to perform graphics transformations to produce eye–catching displays, and how to use animation to produce pages that are alive with action.
• How to use the WPF document types for text layout and navigation.

Who is this book for

This book is for C# programmers wanting to learn to program Microsoft’s latest method of building stunning Windows programs—Windows Presentation Foundation. They could be web programmers familiar with ASP.NET or programmers coming from Windows Forms. This book is designed for those who want a concise but thorough, visual presentation of the platform. It is not for those who want a long, leisurely, verbose explanation of the platform.