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WPF 4 Unleashed

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Editorial Reviews

The #1 WPF Book--Now Updated for WPF 4!

Full Color: Code samples appear as they do in Visual Studio!

Thorough, authoritative coverage, practical examples, clear writing, and full-color presentation make this one of the most widely acclaimed programming books of the last decade.

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is the recommended technology for creating Windows user interfaces, giving you the power to create richer and more compelling applications than you dreamed possible. Whether you want to develop traditional user interfaces or integrate 3D graphics, audio/video, animation, dynamic skinning, multi-touch, rich document support, speech recognition, or more, WPF enables you to do so in a seamless, resolution-independent manner. WPF 4 Unleashed is the authoritative book that covers it all, in a practical and approachable fashion, authored by WPF guru and Microsoft developer Adam Nathan.

Covers everything you need to know about Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML)
Examines the WPF feature areas in incredible depth: controls, layout, resources, data binding, styling, graphics, animation, and more
Highlights the latest features, such as multi-touch, text rendering improvements, XAML language enhancements, new controls, the Visual State Manager, easing functions, and much more
Delves into topics that aren’t covered by most books: 3D, speech, audio/video, documents, effects
Shows how to create popular UI elements, such as Galleries, ScreenTips, and more
Demonstrates how to create sophisticated UI mechanisms, such as Visual Studio-like collapsible/dockable panes
Explains how to create first-class custom controls for WPF
Demonstrates how to create hybrid WPF software that leverages Windows Forms, DirectX, ActiveX, or other non-WPF technologies
Explains how to exploit new Windows 7 features, such as Jump Lists and taskbar customizations

Customer Reviews

WPF 4 Unleashed is an excellent reference book to keep around once you've already got some WPF experience. For someone just starting out with WPF, you can certainly use this book and it will get you going... But in my opinion, a beginner would be better off with a book that provided examples and exercises to gain hands-on experience. This book will explain concepts to you, which is why it's great to keep around once you've got some experience under your belt. Starting off with it might not be the best choice though. In particular, chapter 2, titled "XAML Demystified" is brutal. As I was reading the book, I actually had already been working a fair amount with WPF, and so I thought I'd be speeding through the early chapters with no problem at all. Contrary to the chapter title, I have never been *more* mystified by XAML than when reading this chapter. I hate to say it, but I think this chapter needs to be thrown out and re-done... and/or moved much later in the book... and/or renamed something like, "XAML Deep Dive... Hang On Tight". After I got through that chapter, I had no idea what was important and what wasn't, what was useful and what was just extra trivia, and I had an overall feeling of terror about WPF which made me scream out, "WINFORMS!!!!".

That being said, the remainder of the book really is quite good... But I personally prefer books with hands-on exercises, introducing common stumbling blocks and helping you through the right way to tackle them as you go. I can't emphasize enough, however, this is a great reference book to keep around as you work on your WPF app.

This is now the number 1 book for learning WPF 4 - it is a significant update of "Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed" which was the best book for learning WPF. The book looks like it is twice as thick as the previous book; however, it is exactly the same style with material that looks just like the previous book - many of the same samples. The code is downloadable and uses Visual Studio 2010 solutions.

Very highly recommended.

It's not very often you find a technical book printed in color. But for WPF to really shine, you've got to see it in color! Kudos to the writer and publisher for making this happen. I wish more technical books were printed in color!

I've purchased the older edition of this book, as well as this newer edition. This is probably not the easiest WPF book to read on the market right now. The first 2 chapters will either bore you or scare you. The author goes into great length about demystifying XAML, routed events, etc. These are things, that if you know nothing about WPF, will almost put you to sleep. Best skip to Chapter 3 and read the Fundamentals of WPF and once you have enough familiarity with WPF, go back and read Chapters 1 and 2.

The rest of the book does a fairly good job at presenting WPF-related topics. But this book is not very focused as it tries to show you a little bit of everything about WPF which can be both good and bad depending on what you are looking for. So, if you are an enterprise developer with a deadline, this will be a good introductory book, but you'll want to find another book written specifically for enterprise development with WPF.

Overall, I would recommend this book to the would-be WPF developer if you are looking for an introductory book about WPF and to get yourself to start thinking outside of the WinForms mindset [box].

I purchased the electronic version of this book because of the San Diego tech immersion group recommended and used it for group study. My review is about the eBook version of it. For a colored book like this, my input is that it's easier to read it on a computer or iPad, which has the colorful screen. When you read this kind of books on a Kindle, there is no color, and the pictures are not big enough to see what's going on; nevertheless, I like it, I just read it off a colored screen.

As a beginning programmer in C# and WPF, I enjoyed Adam's writing style and explanations. However in many cases (not all), he makes assumtions about how much you know. The devil is in the details. Unless I missed it, when Adam updates this book next time, he should make sure he explains this at the beginning of the book. I found I was totally confused when I started reading ALL of the extra Tips (not all of them) and extra sidebar explanations. Adam should inclued at the beginning of the book that IF you are new to this technology you should avoid reading extra explanations and just focus on the main content. IF you are familary with WPF and have been working in for a while THEN read all of the extra explanations and digging deeper content. I also found out that I could not figure how to get some of his code exammples to work even from the downloaded book code examples.

I plan on using this book for big picture and some detail explanations. I do recommend this book for Intermediate and experienced C# programmers. HOWEVER, if you're new to WPF and C# be prepared for a steep learning curve.

I have been working with, or tried to work with, WPF for over a year without reading any book, thinking that with my c# and window background, I can wing it. I was so wrong. Studying this book really help me understand that WPF is really a different beast, and I need to pay a lot of respect to it. This book explains the basics of WPF and XAML. If you have never attempted WPF, the first couple chapter could be daunting. However, if you have been confused by WPF as I have, the first 2 chapters opened a whole new vista. The rest of the book is easier to read. I learnt better by examples and this book as a lot of examples for download. I definitely recommend this book as a first book to learn WPF.

This book is a great book for WPF, but REALLY inadequate when it comes to discussing with examples of what I beleive to be the backbone of WPF, namely DataContext, Styles, DataTempates, and ControlTemplates. It would also have been nice to have a discussion on the MVVM pattern for WPF (maybe a future release?). The book itself has really high quality illustrations and paper quality....it reminds me of a college textbook in that regard.

Some topics are explained really well such as layout (esp. the section on creating Visual Studio style dock panels), resources, data providers, styles etc. The author's in-depth knowledge of WPF truly shows.

However, some key ares that are essential for building commercial business apps are either not covered at all or poorly written:
- MVVM
- Data binding in a realistic business app(with a SQL backend or a WCF service etc)
- Custom commands
- 2D graphics

As a glaring example of how sloppy the author sometimes can be, consider the example of drawing a pie chart (p442 - 445, chapter 14). This chapter is actually quite well written for the subject it's supposed to cover: styles and templates. But the author really dropped the ball on this particular sample. In WPF to create a pie chart you have to use the ArcSegment element, which by the way, is rather difficult to understand and is a lame API to start with in my opinion (the underlying Direct2D is to blame I guess, and WPF just inherited Direct2D's deficiency). Instead of spending some time to explain ArcSegment, the author simply threw out a full page of code and expected the reader to just know how it works. As a leading expert on WPF, Adam could have done better(hey, this is the 2nd edition of his WPF book).

The best resource on this subject is an article written by Charles Petzold (google for "ArgSegment, Petzold"), whose "Application = Code + Markup", although written 4 years before this book, does a much better job on 2D graphics. Even the example on MSDN is a lot better than this book's coverage.

I usually write long reviews but I am writing a quickie just to say this is one of the absolute BEST books on WPF.

I love the color layouts and screen shots and diagrams. Any book about a GUI as rich as WPF should be done in color some of the best WPF books are in black and white. This book gets it right and uses color well.

Hats off to a great writing job, good code samples and really useful book - this author delivers quality WPF code!

Coding samples great, insights great, this book is a WINNER and not in a 'Charlie Sheen' kind of way :D

I find this book to be a good balance between a training book and a reference book. It's good at both, but not spectacular at either. The organization is good, but the XML in Chapter 2 can be a bit difficult for a novice to absorb.

Overall, a good book.

I love this book especially the FAQ, TIP, DIGGING DEEPER and WARNING callout blocks. The code examples on the author's website are very good to clarify the subject and unleash the power of WPF. Chapter 2 "XAML Demystified" is wonderful and resourceful as it explains the inner working of XAML. I will definitely refer to this book over and over again when working on a WPF project.

There are a lot of things nicely done in this book, like the layouts, but I was primarily interested in data binding, that is, setting it up so that a control (like TextBox) would reflect the value of a property.

There's a whole chapter in the book which sounds like data binding is covered, but I found the entire chapter to be completely useless. It's good background information for the concept, but from just this book, I found it impossible to get binding to work in a real program. The examples were fragmented and incomplete and therefore almost useless. I could not find the 'DataContext' declaration in the index and it was essential to getting binding to work. Also, there was no hint of how to get properties in instantiated objects to be bound - thank goodness for forums. If it weren't for WPF forums and some VERY helpful people, I would have never gotten my application to work.

Also, getting ComboBox and Slider to work was impossible from the information in the book. Again, the forums were essential because the examples are too fragmented. And I suspect other controls would have similar problems, but I didn't need them.

None of the examples that I found were complete and able to run, so perhaps the book needs some labs/tutorials that can be downloaded and run to make sure all the little parts are in the right place.

As a CIO with limited time, I look for technical books that provide both immediate and long term knowledge and value. I want a technical book that can be either devoured or savored as time and appetite warrant. This book, WPF 4 Unleashed, is such a book.

It provided healthy portions of meaty and substantial materials and also served up lighter fare reference materials.

The first eight chapters are worth the price of the book alone. All chapters are crisp and sprinkled with "warnings, tips, FAQs, and digging deeper" sides and there are generous potions of code, diagrams, and illustrations throughout.

At over 800 pages, it offers a lot of entrees and impressive side of an index, but I would have enjoyed "a wafer thin mint" of a glossary for dessert.
All in all, a very good book for today and tomorrow.

Blair.Baker7@gmail.com

This is a really good book for beginners. It is a good reference for experienced WPF developer as well. It well explains WPF fundamentals and controls. Basically, this book covers all materials that a WPF developer needs to know. The author consistently uses a snippet of codes to show how to use a WPF function thoughout the book. The book also includes some useful programming tips. The readability is very high. I picked up WPF by reading the book chapter by chapter. I would recommend this book to my colleagues who wants to pick up WPF. For those who look for an example how to build a WPF application, this is not the book for this kind purpose.

A highly detailed overview of WPF. Chapter 2, "XAML Demistified" for me, was worth getting the book for. I thought the colored layout made the text very readable. I also thought the examples in the book did a very good job of illustrating the concepts of WPF. The author presents the basics of WPF but does a really good job of filling in the details on special cases.

I would recommend this book to others.

I have learned Silverlight a bit before reading this book and so I have some knowledge of the XAML.

But when reading this book, I have known more details of the XAML and things under the hood. The book go deep inside while not confusing a whole lot to me.
Sometimes, the tutorials won't give me the clear understanding and I have to do some experiements of how things work. Chapters are organized in a way that just start from the Chapter 1 and then continue reading on and without skipping it. If you skipped and feel lost, then go back the previous chapters and it always help me. Printed in all color so it's very easy to read and follow the tutorial too.

Overall, I would recommend to some novice level.

The variety of topics covered in this book make it a good reference for WPF. I did find the chapter on XAML to be rather poorly organized (it jumped between beginning and advanced topics too frequently. And the examples weren't quite clear enough). Other than the second chapter, I found the book to be a very good reference with a lot of examples (some of which were a little too brief). There are probably other books that are better suited to learning on your own, but this book works ok in a discussion group. It helps if you have an expert who can clarify details and give other examples. I really wish there had been some exercises and/or a project in the book that gave the user some practice and tied the concepts together a little more.

I was divided between liking and disliking this book. In the end, I decided I liked it. It did not just tell you how to do something, but often told why the WPF designers made the decisions they made. This often made the flow of the text a little hard to follow, but I don't know how he could have provided the level of information he provided any better than he did. Many of the complex explanations are put into boxes called Digging Deeper. I always at least skimmed them, but I did not worry if I did not understand it. For instance, how WPF implements default properties was interesting, but I did not feel the need to understand how it worked.

The thing I appreciated most was he had code examples of pretty much everything he discussed. And the examples were not overly simplified. In many other books I find the examples are simplified to such an extent, that I have to figure out how to use them in real life. I feel his examples are complete, and they can be used as is in an real application.

I still have not done a real WPF application, so I don't yet know how well I really understand the topic. But I feel confident that when I do attempt a WPF project, the explanations and examples in this book will get me up to speed much more quickly than I would have otherwise.

This is a good reference book, but I did not like the deep dive taken early. I would have preferred small example code with exercises to complete, followed by the underlying explanation of the framework. This book takes the opposite approach, which was not my style. Also, I was not actively using the technology, so picking it up each time to study made it more difficult.

Now that I have had time to re-read portions of the book, I am understanding it more, and perhaps the complexity does require presenting the book in this way.

WPF does have an amazing lot of functionality, it's just a matter of figuring out how to put all the pieces together. Just don't expect this to be a step-by-step tutorial!

This is my third and so far my favorite book on Microsoft's WPF 4 technology. Very readable take on what can be a confusing topic.

The book makes good use of color making it a more enjoyable read. I was satisfied with the comprehensiveness of coverage and technical depth. However, I'll need to spend more time working through additional examples before I will feel confident with the technology.

It is probably best to read through the chapters sticking to the main body and ignoring the side notes and tips on the first pass. This will help you get the big picture without getting lost in the details.

Overall, I thought the book is well written and would recommend it.

The book is well written and being color actually helps a considerable amount.

This book is good to get explanations of concepts and how to do things in WPF, but there are no labs or tutorials. So if you are learning WPF, it would probably help to have your own project in mind so that you can practice concepts as you learn them.

This is a good book to read straight through for learning WPF. In fact, you should probably read it twice. If you are looking for a desktop reference there are other books which would be better suited. There is a lot of material in the first part of the book which will make more sense once you've had a read through. I would recommend skipping `Part 1 Background' and just start with `Part 2 Building a WPF Application' and skip all of the `digging deeper' sections until your second reading. Unless you have a background in XAML chapter two will seem really unnecessary and confusing. Having a color was a very nice touch and the tips were very helpful. The book hits the topics that are important and goes into quite a bit of detail. All and all a very good book.

I would like to have seen "Labs" at the end of each chapter. But other than that I thought it was a good book for learning WPF.

This is my second WPF book and I found it much easier to follow and ultimately more engaging than Petzold. The use of color was especially nice, and the various "tips and tricks" scattered throughout were very helpful. I'm sure this will be a useful reference that will be revisited many times.

Although the content covers many areas, and there is a fair amount of technical depth on each topic, I think the information was somewhat piecemeal since there was no large sample application that "pulled it all together". The book would be improved by a sample app that demonstrated best practices for architecting a WPF app, perhaps including the popular MVVM pattern.

I do not believe any book is perfect. The best response I can give when asked whether I recommend a book is whether or not it helped me to get to the next level and left me inspired to learn more. I can honestly say I read this book from cover to cover. I was part of a group of people that read 4 chapters a month for 5 months and got together to discuss the content at the end of each month. When I first started reading the book I was already planning ways I was going to tear this author a new one with my review when we were done. Now that we are done and I am sitting down to write that review I find I cannot be as brutal or mean as I originally intended. That is because this book kept pace with me in a way I have to say was spooky. I am an experienced developer and I had already taken a Beginning WPF class from the local university where we used MacDonald's "Pro WPF in C# 2010". That was a good beginner book and brought me up to speed really fast. But there is a HUGE difference between _learning_ a technology and _using_ that technology in a practical and professional environment. I started on a big new project at work at the same time I started reading this book. For the past 5 months it has been _eerie_ how the book perfectly matched my needs on the project. When I needed to do complex binding we were reading that chapter... when I had to write User and Custom Controls that chapter was there, and so on in many more ways than I can type in here. As the project matured and became more complex so did my needs with the technology. This book knew what I needed and when.

That being said, I would definitely not recommend this as a beginner book or as a reference for the technology. I will, however, strongly recommend it for anyone who has a good understanding of WPF and wants to learn how best to start applying that knowledge. I was concerned about chapter 2 jumping in to a lot of XAML detail so early but it turned out to be a great time to garner a better understanding of it. Again, this would not be appropriate for a beginner. Rather, it is a great book for the novice to catapult them to the next level (or more). In conclusion, was I inspired to continue learning more about WPF? I would say yes. I learned a lot and this book helped me to garner a much better understanding so that I enjoyed using WPF much more and am inspired to continue getting better at using it.

I really like the book WPF 4 Unleashed by Adam Nathan. I will keep this book handy and read and re-read it for many years to come. Unleashed has such a plethora of valuable information that I wouldn't be surprised if some folks call it the WPF bible.
I think chapter one scares some people off. Chapter one has very technical information and to fully understand what was being related a person would have had to have a background in .Net development. I think that this chapter would have fit with the more advanced topics towards the back of the book.
Chapter 3 is my favorite chapter. The text in this chapter provides the information necessary to really understand the inner workings of WPF. Understanding the information in chapter 3 will provide a very good foundation for future development efforts.
One last thing that makes WPF 4 Unleashed such a great book is the way they have included the section topic and chapter and page numbers on every page. This makes it so easy to following the flow and find needed material quickly.

A very well written and illustrated book. If you're working on a project that requires WPF, this will probably answer many of your questions. If you're just trying to learn WPF, it's probably not a good choice: It's definitely not a tutorial, rather something like "here are a lot of the things you can do with WPF". I was looking for something that would help me write a WPF front end to some SQL data.. and it didn't really do that for me, but if you're looking for ways to do fancier screens, or if you're already using some WPF and want to get into some of the finer details, this might be just the book for you.

I found that the book was pretty good at getting me started with WPF and showing me a lot of what it can do. I have been a programmer for a while but have hardly dipped my toe into the XAML pool.

The illusrtations were good and it was helpful being able to see what was rendered rather than just imagine it, or have to get the source from a CD. That being said, buy the physical book, not the Kindle version. The Kindle book was organized into positions instead of pages so it was hard to tell how much progress I was making through the book. Also, occasionally the graphics, in this case code snippets and XAML in color and illustrations were broken or missing.

This is a very good book to whet your appetite for WPF. The reader should have an understanding of .NET technologies and C# in particular. I read the previous version of this book. There is greater low-level detail in this book, but it is a much harder read.

The book is beautiful to read. There are many colored screen shots, which tie into the code samples nicely. The FAQ and "Digging Deeper" boxes are very informative. The chapters are well laid out with a summary page that has syntax for everything in the chapter.

There is a chapter about migrating WPF forms and individual controls into an existing Winform application. This chapter is worth the price of the book itself!

I suggest reading a chapter completely before doing the exercises. The author often uses the large hammer approach at the beginning of an exercise, explains that there is a better way, then shows the better way.

The most blatant missing section of the book is database connectivity. Binding a collection to a control is cool, but a real world SQL sample would be fantastic.

I liked this book. I have many pages tagged for rereading.

I was hoping this book would teach me more about actually using WPF to create interfaces. There was a lot of stuff that I found interesting, but it didn't really help me achieve my goal. This is definitely not a tutorial. I also wouldn't keep the book around as a reference, it isn't really written for that either.

I'm giving it four stars because I think that while it didn't necessarily meet my expectations, it was very well written. The author expresses complex ideas in a way that is transparent and simple. However, I also wish that the chapter on the inner workings of XAML hadn't been one of the first chapters. I would like to give the book 3-1/2 stars. That's not an option, so I'm rounding up.

This was my second WPF book and I wish I had made it my first. However, as a beginner's book - it would be challenging without a solid C# background. But that is the nature of WPF - it's not your mother's Visual Basic and requires a serious commitment to learn. The platform offers great power and wielding that power requires the mastery of quite a few new concepts that go way beyond Winforms concepts. WPF's advanced concepts, such as data binding, commanding, dependency properties, animations, etc. will definitely serve to separate the less-committed devs from the more studious ones. If you consider yourself one of the latter, then this book is for you,

Regarding Winforms - I think the writing is on the wall that it's a dead platform. If you're a Winforms guy (or gal) start learning WPF ASAP! And just to throw fuel on the fire - after reading a book such as this one, you'll also need to master the MVVM architectural pattern to do any serious WPF projects.

As with all complex subjects, a single book cannot cover everything. Adding more depth to the book could have made it over 1500 pages. My only negative observation is that Chapter 2, XAML Demystified, should have been preceded with a more general intro to a basic WPF application. That chapter alone could scare off potential WPF converts - don't let that happen to you!

The color format and the matching of Visual Studio editors is a nice touch that adds to the readability. I also liked the Tips sections, which as a second text provided me with very useful material as a practicing WPF developer that is often missing from technology books. This clearly showed the author's in-depth mastery of the subject.

All in all an excellent book - keep in mind that learning WPF will not be easy for anyone and that considering it a journey, rather than a job-related chore, will make it easier. Happy late-night reading!

Now, after quite a while, I'm able to sit long reading a book. Liking every moment. Something tells me that this is what a book should be like. I wish I can find books like this on all the subjects I wart to learn. You get the feeling that there is a difference when a book is written by the owner/creator of the technology or whatever the book is about.

Thank you, Adam!

I actually really like this book , it is a verry good reference guide on WPF 4 and has some great examples
also the colour in the book is pretty neat :-) , the only dissapointing thingy is the C# only example source code
okay i can easy rewrite everything to VB.Net but i still feel that technology books like these should provide C# and VB.Net code snippets just like MS does in the self paced trainigkit series.
If you are serious with WPF 4 then this book is a must have

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