Illustrated WPF (eBook)

Daniel Solis is a contract software engineer who has worked for a number of high-profile clients, including Microsoft Consulting Services, IBM, Lockheed Martin, and PeopleSoft. He has been programming and teaching object-oriented languages and development methods throughout the U.S. and Europe since the early days of C++. It was while teaching numerous seminars on various programming languages that he realized the immense power of diagrams in explaining programming language concepts.

Content at a Glance 5
Table of Contents 6
About the Author 14
Acknowledgments 15
Introduction 16
Audience, Source Code, and Contact Information 16
1 Introduction to WindowsPresentation Foundation 17
What Is Windows Presentation Foundation? 18
The Path to the Screen 19
Games and DirectX 19
Windows Forms 20
Rendering Under WPF 21
Documents and Fonts 22
Graphics and Animation 22
Styles and Control Templates 23
Separating Visual Design from Coding 23
WPF Prefers Vector Graphics 24
Bitmap Images 24
Bitmap Images and Screen Size 25
Vector Graphics 26
System DPI Independence and WPF Units 27
XAML Browser Applications (XBAPs) 29
The Other Parts of .NET 30
Silverlight 31
Summary 32
2 Overview of WPF Programming 33
What Is an API? 34
A Simple WPF Program 35
Creating the Simple Program 37
Just the Facts 38
Step-by-Step 39
The Compilation Process 44
The Application and Window Classes 45
The Window Class 46
The Components of a Visual Window 46
Creating a Window 47
Important Properties of a Window 49
WindowStyle 50
Content 51
Summary 53
3 WPF Architecture and Applications 54
Using Visual Studio to Create a WPF Program 55
Source Code Generated by the Template 59
What Is XAML? 60
Logical Trees and Visual Trees 61
The Compilation Process 62
How the Files Are Used 64
The WPF Architecture 66
More About the Window Class 67
SolidColorBrushes 68
Creating Colors 70
Gradient Brushes 74
Linear Gradient Brushes 75
RadialGradientBrushes 77
The Application Class 78
Handling Application Events 79
Application Lifetime Events 79
UI Elements Contain Content 82
The Class Inheritance Hierarchy 83
Summary 85
4 XAML 86
A Tree of Objects 87
Using XamlPad 88
Creating the UI Structure 89
XAML Trees 91
Object Element Syntax 91
The Syntax of Elements 92
Attribute Syntax 93
Empty Elements 94
More About Object Element Syntax 95
The Default Content Property 96
Type Converters for Attributes 97
Property Element Syntax 98
Attached Property Syntax 99
Reviewing the XAML Syntax Forms 100
Top-Level Elements 100
Code-Behind and Object Names 101
Namespaces 102
The Syntax of Namespaces 103
Using Classes from Other Namespaces 105
Example Using Namespaces 107
Markup Extensions 108
Example Creating a Markup Extension 110
White Space 112
Special Characters 114
Summary 115
5 Layout 116
Layout in WPF 117
Chapter Conventions 118
The Layout Process 119
Setting the Requested Size of Elements 121
Alignment 122
Content Alignment 123
Visibility 124
Padding and Margins 125
Panels 127
The StackPanel 128
The WrapPanel 129
The DockPanel 131
The Grid 134
Items Spanning Cells 137
Sizing Rows and Columns 139
Absolute Sizing 139
Automatic Sizing 141
Proportional Sizing 142
Splitter Bars 144
Shared Size Groups 147
The Canvas 149
Z-Order on a Canvas 151
The UniformGrid 153
Summary 154
6 Content and Controls 155
Liberating Content 156
Source Code Conventions 157
The Image Element 158
Displaying an Image Using Code 159
The ContentControls 161
The Label Control 162
The Button Control 164
The CheckBox and RadioButton Controls 165
Grouping RadioButtons 166
The ScrollViewer 173
The Window Class 167
Window Ownership 168
Modal Dialog Boxes 169
The MessageBox Dialog Box 172
The HeaderedContentControls 174
The GroupBox Element 175
The Expander Control 176
ItemsControl Elements 177
The ListBox Control 178
Checking the Selection 179
Notification of Changed Selection 180
Multiple Selections 181
The ComboBox Control 182
Selecting and Entering Items 183
Summary 184
7 Dependency Properties 185
Properties and a New Paradigm 186
Looking at an Example 188
Determining the Value of a Property 190
The Infrastructure of a Dependency Property 191
Creating a Custom Dependency Property 192
Example: Creating a Dependency Property 198
Attached Properties 201
The Structure of an Attached Property 203
Creating an Attached Property 204
Summary 207
8 Data Binding 208
What Is Data Binding? 209
The Binding Object 211
Binding Direction 213
Triggers 215
Data Converters 217
Multiple Bindings on an Element 219
More Fun with Multiple Bindings 220
Deleting Bindings 222
Binding to Nonelements 225
Data Contexts 227
Bindings and ItemsControls 228
Summary 232
9 Routing Events and Commands 233
What Is an Event? 234
Event Handlers: Syntax and Semantics 236
What Are Routed Events? 237
Handling Routed Events 238
Bubbling Example 239
Checking for Tunneling 241
Commands 243
Built-in Commands and Support 246
The RoutedCommand Class 251
Creating Custom Commands 252
Routing Commands 255
Summary 256
10 Other Controls and Elements 257
The TextBox Control 258
Menus 260
Adorning the MenuItem 262
Other Content As the Menu Header 263
Attaching Commands to Menu Items 264
Context Menus 266
ToolBars 268
StatusBars 270
ToolTips 271
Controls That Work with Ranges 272
The ProgressBar 272
The Slider 275
Summary 277
11 Resources 278
Two Types of Resources 279
The ResourceDictionary 280
StaticResources and DynamicResources 288
Assembly Resources 292
Accessing Assembly Resources from the Code 293
Pack URIs 295
Summary 297
12 Styles 298
What Are Styles? 299
Named Styles 300
Targeted Styles 303
Comparing Named and Targeted Styles 304
EventSetters 305
The Collections in a Style 306
Property Triggers 307
MultiTriggers 308
Other Types of Triggers 309
Summary 310
13 Control Templates 311
Separating Appearance from Behavior 312
Developing a Simple Control Template 314
The ContentPresenter Class 316
Template Binding 318
ControlTemplate Triggers 319
Summary 322
14 Page Navigation Programs 323
Types of Navigation 324
The Components of a Navigation Program 328
Frames 331
Journal Options in Frames 333
Navigating Programmatically 334
Passing Data to a Page 336
Getting Data Back from a Page 339
XAML Browser Applications 343
Creating an XBAP Application 343
Deploying and Running 344
Summary 346
15 More Data Binding 347
Data Templates 348
Views 356
Filtering in a View 357
Sorting in a View 361
Grouping in a View 364
Summary 368
16 Trees, Tabs, and Other Controls 369
The TreeView Control 370
The HierarchicalDataTemplate 374
Using Event Handlers with TreeViews 380
Binding Other Controls to a TreeView 383
The TabControl 386
The Calendar Control 388
The DatePicker Control 391
Summary 397
17 Text and Documents 398
Text in WPF 399
An Overview of Flow Documents 400
The Components of a Flow Document 403
The Hosting Controls 404
The Content of a Flow Document 405
Tables and Lists 411
Embedded Flow Documents 415
The TextBlock Element 416
Summary 419
18 Graphics in WPF 420
Graphics in WPF 421
Transforms 422
The RotateTransform 423
Using LayoutTransform vs. RenderTransform 425
The TranslateTransform 427
The SkewTransform 428
The ScaleTransform 430
BitmapEffects 431
Brushes 433
LinearGradientBrushes 434
Shapes 438
The Geometry Classes 440
The Simple Geometry Classes 441
The PathGeometry Class 443
The LineSegment and the PolyLineSegment 445
The ArcSegment 446
Combining Geometries 448
Path Markup Syntax 450
Filling Geometries 452
Drawings 455
The DrawingImage Class 457
The DrawingBrush Class 458
Summary 460
19 Animation 461
What Is Animation? 462
Animation Object Basics 464
The AnimationClock Class 468
Storyboards 470
Storyboards in Markup 474
Other Variations on Animation 476
Keyframe Animations 477
Linear Keyframe Animation 478
Spline Interpolation Animations 481
Discrete Keyframe Animation 483
Path Animations 484
Summary 486
20 Audio and Video 487
Overview of Audio 488
SystemSounds 488
SoundPlayer 489
SoundPlayerAction 490
MediaPlayer 491
MediaElement 494
Video 499
Summary 501
Index 502