WPF 4.5 Unleashed

Adam Nathan is a principal software architect for Microsoft in the Startup Business Group. Adam was previously the founding developer and architect for Popfly, Microsoft's first product built on Silverlight, named one of the 25 most innovative products of 2007 by PCWorld Magazine. Having started his career on Microsoft’s Common Language Runtime team, Adam has been at the core of .NET and WPF technologies since the very beginning. Adam’s books have been considered required reading by many inside Microsoft and throughout the industry. He is the author of the best-selling WPF Unleashed (Sams, 2006) that was nominated for a 2008 Jolt Award, WPF 4 Unleashed (Sams, 2010), Windows 8 Apps with XAML and C# Unleashed (Sams, 2012), 101 Windows Phone 7 Apps (Sams, 2011), Silverlight 1.0 Unleashed (Sams, 2008), and .NET and COM: The Complete Interoperability Guide (Sams, 2002); a coauthor of ASP.NET: Tips, Tutorials, and Code (Sams, 2001); and a contributor to books including .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference, Volume 2 (Addison-Wesley, 2005) and Windows Developer Power Tools (O’Reilly, 2006). Adam is also the creator of PINVOKE.NET and its Visual Studio add-in. You can find him online at www.adamnathan.net or @adamnathan on Twitter.

Introduction     1
Who Should Read This Book?      2
Software Requirements     3
Code Examples     3
How This Book Is Organized     4
Conventions Used in This Book     6

Part I: Background
Chapter 1: Why WPF?      7
A Look at the Past      8
Enter WPF     9
The Evolution of WPF     12
Summary     16
Chapter 2: XAML Demystified     17
XAML Defined     19
Elements and Attributes     20
Namespaces     22
Property Elements     25
Type Converters     26
Markup Extensions      28
Children of Object Elements     31
Mixing XAML with Procedural Code     36
XAML2009     44
XAML Keywords     49
Summary     52
Chapter 3: WPF Fundamentals     55
A Tour of the Class Hierarchy      55
Logical and Visual Trees     57
Dependency Properties      62
Summary     76

Part II: Building a WPF Application
Chapter 4: Sizing, Positioning, and Transforming Elements     77
Controlling Size     78
Controlling Position     83
Applying Transforms     86
Summary     95
Chapter 5: Layout with Panels     97
Canvas     98
StackPanel     100
WrapPanel     102
DockPanel     105
Grid     108
Primitive Panels     120
Handling Content Overflow     122
Putting It All Together: Creating a Visual Studio-Like Collapsible, Dockable, Resizable Pane     130
Summary     140
Chapter 6: Input Events: Keyboard, Mouse, Stylus, and Touch     141
Routed Events     141
Keyboard Events     150
Mouse Events     152
Stylus Events     156
Touch Events     158
Commands     170
Summary     176
Chapter 7: Structuring and Deploying an Application     177
Standard Desktop Applications     177
Navigation-Based Desktop Applications     193
Gadget-Style Applications     205
XAML Browser Applications     207
Loose XAML Pages     213
Summary     215
Chapter 8: Exploiting Windows Desktop Features     217
Jump Lists     217
Taskbar Item Customizations     229
Aero Glass     233
TaskDialog     236
Summary     239

Part III: Controls
Chapter 9: Content Controls     241
Buttons     243
Simple Containers     248
Containers with Headers     252
Summary     254
Chapter 10: Items Controls     255
Common Functionality     256
Selectors     261
Menus     298
Other Items Controls     302
Summary   &