Applications = Code + Markup: A Guide to the Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (Pro - Developer) | 
 enlarge | Author: Charles Petzold
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Category: Book
List Price: $59.99
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Rating:  39 reviews
Sales Rank: 48383
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 1020
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.6 x 2
ISBN: 0735619573
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.446
EAN: 9780735619579
Publication Date: September 13, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: New book, ships out next business day, 100% satisfaction guaranteed, remainder mark, may have shelf wear
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Product Description
In this book, Windows programming legend Charles Petzold covers in parallel the two interfaces that make up the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). From the outset, the reader can shift focus seamlessly between Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) and C# to see them as flip sides of the same processes. Beginning in the first chapter, Petzold presents the general syntax of the XAML and corresponding programming code with numerous illuminating examples on how the two correspond and interrelate. The book builds on this base, providing the classic Petzold Windows user interface (UI) treatment, to show Windows developers how to create next-generation interfaces for their applications.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 34 more reviews...
 If you only get one WPF book, get this one August 31, 2006
Pablo F. Fernicola
39 out of 49 found this review helpful
Disclaimer - I am one of the senior leads in WPF and helped answer a few questions for Charles (as I do for other writers, press, and developers), and I bought my own copy of this book.
Windows Presentation Foundation sets a new baseline for an application development framework, not only for Windows development, but across the industry. Of note are the integration of UI, documents, and media functionality into a consistent programming model, and the way that this set of functionality interoperates, as well as the expressibility of these concepts in XML (the set of XML tags is referred to as XAML). This is a lot of material to cover, and this book does the best job so far in covering the breadth of knowledge that you will need to develop WPF based applications.
Charles's book reads very naturally (sometimes it felt like I was reading one of the Inside Mac books 18 years ago, which I really enjoyed). Charles provides a good introduction in the first four chapters to get you going, and then takes you through the key built-in layouts (you can also extend by creating your own Panels - chapter 12).
In chapter 8 and 9 he goes through some of the fundamentals that you will need to build your own custom elements/controls, which he tend proceeds to cover in chapters 10, 11, and 12.
Chapter 13 through 16 go through some key controls in a lot of detail.
Chapter 17 takes you into Printing.
In chapter 18 you build a full simple application (a Notepad clone).
Chapter 19 kicks-off a series of chapters that deal with XAML.
Chapter 22 deals with some key concepts, such as running WPF applications/content in a browser, and navigation applications.
Databinding is covered in chapter 23, followed by Styles and Templates (a great way to sequence these concepts, building on previous concepts).
Chapter 26 covers concepts related to a key real world scenario - Data Entry and Data Views.
Chapter 27 through 31 deal with my favorite topics - Graphics and Animations.
Overall a great book, and a good read. Essential for learning WPF at your own pace and getting exposed to the breadth of functionality.
Some of the things that he does not cover: 3D graphics, Media (audio/video), XPS, and Typography functionality.
It May Not Be Pretty, But It's Pretty Good! January 20, 2008
G. Mead (UK)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book seems to have had several negative reviews.
The gist of most people's complaints seem to be:
(a) "There's no XAML until Chapter 19" and/or
(b) "There aren't any pictures".
The Complaints - are they justified?
a. No XAML
People making this complaint have in my opinion totally missed the point for several reasons.
Firstly, this is not Charles Petzold's "How to Write XAML" book. It's a book whose title explicitly tells you that it will approach WPF from both the code (C#) and markup (XAML) perspectives. Unusually (actually I think it is uniquely) he doesn't mix and chop up the two approaches, but deals with each of them in isolation.
Secondly, WPF is not XAML. You can use XAML, sure. You'd be silly not to in many situations. But XAML is only one part of the big picture. As this book clearly shows, you can successfully create an awful lot of WPF output with code alone.
b. No Pictures
Normally I would have some sympathy with Complaint (b) because it's always nice to see what the code samples should produce. But if you use this book as the author intended and actually run the samples yourself you will gain far more than any quick glance at a screenshot would give you. You will gain insight and experience in how to master this new technology.
The Book
This is a book that very carefully works its way through the requirements needed for the reader to achieve a thorough understanding of the major concepts. One of the reasons why I recommend reading it - and using it - from cover to cover is that, even in the early basic chapters little gems of code and explanation are slipped into the narrative or the examples. Often these begin to deal with more complex topics that you will come on to in more detail later.
It is crammed full of detail. Mostly it's the kind of detail that you really need once you've got past the "let's play with WPF and see what you can knock out in a couple of hours" stage. The detail you need when you move on to the point where you want to do something that isn't necessarily easy out of the box, but is achievable if your understanding is built on stone, not sand.
If I have a complaint, it's a minor one: occasionally he lets the Math geek get out and play a bit more than strictly necessary, but even that is fairly rare.
The code samples are in C# only. However, Young Joo on the VB Team at Microsoft has organised for some chapters to be translated to VB.NET and there are more to come. You can access them from here: http://blogs.msdn.com/vbteam/archive/2008/01/07/petzold-wpf-book-sample-conversion-new-chapters-young-joo.aspx .
Summary
If you are committed to fully understanding WPF then this book is one you really should buy. By all means get others too. I already have several; they all serve their purpose, are very useful and I refer to them regularly. But when it comes right down to the "roll your sleeves up, go sit in a quiet place with book and PC to learn, really learn, WPF" then I think Charles Petzold has produced a (not so little) gem that will be truly helpful to you in your learning endeavours.
The Definitive WPF Book September 17, 2006
Jason Jackson (Austin, TX United States)
19 out of 24 found this review helpful
I have had this book for about 2 weeks now, as Amazon delivered it to me early before the official release. I am a tech book junkie. I buy a lot of tech books. This is the best programming text I have purchased in the last couple of years. Petzold does a great job explaining WPF from both a nuts & bolts prespective and a big picture perspective.
I purchased two other WPF books over the last few months. This book blows both of them away. It was written using the June CTP of the .Net 3.0 framework, which is supposed to be fairly locked down API-wise. All the code works correctly, which I cannot say about my other two books. In the first 5 pages I learned something new about WPF, even though I have been knee deep in the technology for months. Several things that seemed rather mysterious to me in WPF have become crystal clear because of the explanations in this book.
The first half of the book is all C#. The second half is all XAML, acomplishing the same tasks as the first half. This approach really shows the relationship between XAML code and the resulting objects at runtime.
If you want to start programming in .Net 3.0 using the WPF, buy this book.
I appreciate this book so much June 14, 2007
Dale A. Barnard (Driftwood, TX USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I think that Petzold was reading my mind when he wrote this book. I don't like XML, and I don't like "cheating" with XAML when you can write good clean C#. The first half of this book is entirely C# programming in WPF. I am using this book to help me write an abstraction layer above WPF. That simply would not be possible with XAML, which in my opinion places the design of the application at too low of a level. Petzold leaves no stone unturned, and whenever something seems weird, he doesn't ask us to trust him that it makes sense; he explores it in depth for us. I can't imagine that many other authors go through that kind of trouble when they're writing on tight deadlines. Petzold tells it how it is, and he includes the "why." Therefore, I recommend this book to anyone who strives to become a bit of an expert in WPF, not just a get-the-job-done programmer. I would consider this an advanced book at times because I find myself reading and re-reading sections to understand it. The explanation is there, but it's not trivial, and with so many pages in the book already, there is no room to be wordy.
Very well written, highly recommended November 10, 2006
Robert Hostetter (Lititz, PA United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a long book, 30 chapters and about 1000 pages. I'm on chapter 28, but I think I can safely say this is an excellent book on the subject of WPF. After reading this book I now have a much greater understanding of WPF and XAML. One important point though, is that it does NOT cover 3D. This isn't really an issue for me because the applications I'm writing near-term will not be using 3D, but it is an interesting omission.
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