Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed

If, as a software developer, you have spent years looking at the visual promises of Vista, really wanting to dive in and create those next generation, media-rich interfaces, but didn't have a clear indicator of where to begin - now you do. Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed is your one-stop answer to discovering what WPF is, learning basic and advanced controls, and building WPF applications. Without a lot of dry history, and in a full-color presentation that makes comprehending what you're reading much more efficient, you are given a very complete coverage of controls, control manipulation, data binding, animation, and other multimedia objects. Throughout the text you are given not only code snippets, but illustrations of what the finished product should resemble, sidebar Tips sections, sidebar Warnings sections, and sidebar "Digging Deeper", really solidifying the information presented not only in the initial component coverage, but the follow-up WFP application development. Hands down, for adding WPF to your development skills, this is the title you need.

My title is such because Adam's book reminds me of nice Nova episodes on PBS. When I first cracked it open, it felt familiar, inviting, ready to tell me a story with a deliberate plot that both inform and deeply satisfy. Mirroring the industry a bit, over the years dev books have gotten thicker and two-toned and with it the ratio of useful knowledge imparted spartan. As if being first to market and being paid by the words per page was all that mattered these days, say like cable news. In other words, very little thought around quality and how well received the knowledge is. Actually, because it was a SAMS book, I didn't even take it off the shelf the first go-around, but because a colleague praised it, I gave it a 2nd look. SAMS scored big this time, and hopefully the industry will take heed and benefit. With Adam's text, the great art of writing and telling a story, down to finessing the words and imagery so it's just right is back for dev books; we're taken through many around-a-corner, under-the-hood turns, subplots that come together, guided by a masterfully woven storyboard (as it were) that, at the end of each chapter enlightens you with relevance and true insight. Better yet Unleashed gets the creative/imaginary juices going, really explains why WPF matters, empowering you to just rock with it.

Excellent book, very well designed, organized and the colors make a huge difference. This is the best book on WPF I have read (I've read 5 so far). the examples are simple and concise (and they work! which is not always the case with books published so close to the product release). Also, it is amazing how much of WPF this book covers, probably the most extensive coverage of the WPF capabilities. Perfect for intermediate to advanced programmer. Again I was surprised how having color code and illustations made such a difference. A Must have!!

I have been developing in WPF for 18 months and wish I had this long ago. There are things in this book that I can't even find in the documentation for WPF. There are a number of subtleties in WPF that Adam usually starts describing with "Some people are surprised to find...". The breakout boxes in the book also deal with some of the subtleties. WPF is a whole new paradigm for Windows programming and it may have a large learning curve, especially for us old C++ Win32ers. This book will help you through, answer many questions and shorten that curve considerably. This paradigm will forever change the way Windows apps are built. I cannot see myself going back except for very specialized reasons. The other WPF books are good and I have them but this book is simply outstanding in its breadth. I cannot recommend enough.

Adam Nathan's "Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed" is one of the best treatments on what is a very large subject area that I've read. Adam presents the material in a way that anticipates your questions and will have you itching to get at the keyboard to try some of this out. This is no small trick, there's a huge amount of information in this book - but Adam's depth of experience and enthusiam for the subject is very seductive. What comes across in the text is that Adam has been using this technology "in anger" for some time - which means for a relatively new technology this is as definitive a treatment as you're likely to find at this point. The we come to the physical presentation of the book. Without a shadow of a doubt this is the book that all subsequent books on user interface and graphics APIs will be compared against. Rather than have half a dozen color pages in the middle the text the whole book is printed in full color. With hindsight it seems so obvious - but serious kudos I think have to go to Adam and SAMS for taking this step. I don't doubt authors who've got WPF books still in writing will be taking a long hard think about their physical presentation of the material. WPF being such a huge topic I'd recommend reading this book along side Charles Petzold's "Applications = Code + Markup". No one book is ever going to be able to cover the whole WPF in any kind of depth. But between the two of them Adam Nathan and Charles Petzold speak with an authority and enthusiam that makes learning this stuff a please. WPF really is a technology that benefits from differing viewpoints and author backgrounds - and these two books give you a great perspective on the subject.