The book consists of five parts including an Appendix. The
first part provides a solid explanation to WPF, XAML and some of the important
concepts in WPF. The second part introduces you to the controls shipped with
WPF and various features, such as Sizing, Positioning, Transforming elements,
and Panels. The final chapter discusses the deployment aspects of a WPF application.
The third part provides a comprehensive overview about the various features,
such as Resources, Data Binding, Styles, Templates, Skins and Themes. I feel
that these chapters will be of great use for advanced developers.
Some of the interesting features of the book are colored
screenshots and source codes, useful tips and FAQs at relevant pages, and additional
reference material under the banner Dig Deeper. I feel that colored screenshots
help a reader to taste the real essence of the code output. Moreover, the
author has labeled certain portions of the source code, such as in Page 289,
which will surely help a reader to understand the code much better. I must say
that the book is highly code intensive. All the concepts have been examined
only with codes and not using any development environment. I believe that tools
such as Orcas and Expression Blend were not available at the time of the
release of the book.
Part 4 explores the usage of Graphics (2D/3D), Animation and
Audio/Video speech capabilities of WPF with the help of complete source code
along with relevant explanation. I am amazed to see the kind of effort the
author has put in to compile the facts in a meaningful manner. The final part
delves deep into some of the advanced topics such as Interoperability, User
custom controls and development of layout with custom panels.
The source code for all the examples along with complete
table of contents, sample chapter and a list of errata can be accessed from the
publisher’s website. Moreover, you can also view the related
information on the website maintained by the author at http://adamnathan.net/wpf/. The book also
includes one Appendix which contains a list of tools and utilities available
for WPF development. I would suggest the author publishes information about new
tools available currently, such as Expression Blend on the Publisher’s website
so that readers can know about them as well.