Building XAML Windows and Pages

Introducing WPF

• .NET architectural overview
• Advantages of WPF

Creating WPF applications in Visual Studio

• Setting application and window properties
• Implementing behaviours in code-behind files
• Publishing WPF applications with ClickOnce

Coding in XAML

• Adding controls to containers
• Setting properties using attribute and element syntax
• Referencing external namespaces using XAML
• Handling bubbling and tunneling routed events

Architecting WPF Programs

Building browser-based applications (XBAP)

• Loading XAML pages into the browser
• Moving between pages with the navigation service
• Hyperlinking to other pages and Web sites

Constructing navigation applications

• Loading pages into a navigation window
• Passing data between pages
• Navigating page history
• Creating irregularly shaped and transparent windows

Designing WPF User Interfaces

Leveraging WPF controls

• Button
• TextBox
• TextBlock
• Label
• Checkbox
• Slider
• Image
• Menus
• Status bars
• RichTextBox
• Positioning controls in the Grid and Canvas containers

Managing sophisticated layouts

• Defining grid rows and columns
• Assigning controls to grid cells
• Spanning multiple cells
• Resizing rows and columns with the GridSplitter
• Positioning elements with StackPanel and WrapPanel
• Docking controls to windows using the DockPanel

Styling WPF Controls

Altering the appearance of UI elements

• Margin
• Padding
• Fonts
• Background
• Foreground
• Opacity
• Transparency
• Specifying styles using elements

Maintaining consistent styles with resources

• Naming and extending control styles
• Packaging styles in resource dictionaries
• Customizing controls with templates
• Drawing shapes and gradients
• Converting scalable vector graphics to XAML

Activating WPF Applications

Animating UIs for dynamic presentations

• Moving, sizing and rotating elements with transformations
• Transforming elements with animations
• Adding behaviours to styles using event and property triggers

Optimizing for code reuse

• Streamlining event handling with WPF commands
• Utilizing the common and custom dialogs
• Creating user controls
• Specifying dependency properties

Automating Data Access with Data Binding

Binding control properties with XAML

• ItemsControl
• ComboBox
• ListBox
• Formatting content with data templates
• Enhancing forms with scrollable and expandable regions

Accessing data using data providers

• Displaying XML data with the XMLDataProvider and XPath
• Accessing collections using the ObjectDataProvider
• Programming custom type-converters

Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) design pattern

• Binding to the ViewModel class
• Validating user input
• Implementing the INotifyPropertyChanged interface
• Refreshing records automatically using ObservableCollection

Crafting Cross-Platform Silverlight UIs

Creating Silverlight Web applications

• Coding Silverlight with C#, VB and JavaScript
• Delivering video online with the Media Element control
• Employing Silverlight controls
• Exploiting WCF services

Running Silverlight applications outside the browser

• Installing Silverlight applications on Windows and OS X
• Downloading updates
• Detecting the network

Integrating Silverlight with ASP.NET

• Accessing the browser
• Controlling HTML page content
• Invoking JavaScript functions from Silverlight and vice versa