WPF in Action with Visual Studio 2008

517 Pages·2008·16.356 MB·English

by  Arlen Feldman, Maxx Daymon

WPF in Action
with Visual Studio 2008

WPF in Action
with Visual Studio 2008
COVERS VISUAL STUDIO 2008 SP1 AND .NET 3.5 SP1
ARLEN FELDMAN
MAXX DAYMON
MANNING
Greenwich
(74° w. long.)
For online information and ordering of this and other Manning books, please visit
www.manning.com. The publisher offers discounts on this book when ordered in quantity.
For more information, please contact:
Special Sales Department
Manning Publications Co.
Sound View Court 3B Fax: [phone]
Greenwich, CT 06830 Email: [email protected]
©2009 by Manning Publications Co. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
any form or by means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior written
permission of the publisher.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are
claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in the book, and Manning
Publications was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial caps
or all caps.
Recognizing the importance of preserving what has been written, it is Manning’s policy to have
the books we publish printed on acid-free paper, and we exert our best efforts to that end.
Recognizing also our responsibility to conserve the resources of our planet, Manning books are
printed on paper that is at least 15% recycled and processed elemental chlorine-free
Development Editor: Jeff Bleiel
Manning Publications Co. Copyeditor: Andrea Kaucher
Sound View Court 3B Typesetter: Dennis Dalinnik
Greenwich, CT 06830 Cover designer: Leslie Haimes
ISBN 1-933988-22-3
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 – MAL – 12 11 10 09 08
brief contents
PART 1 PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. .......................................1
1 ■ The road to Avalon (WPF) 3
2 ■ Getting started with WPF and Visual Studio 2008 22
3 ■ WPF from 723 feet 41
PART 2 THE BASICS.................................................................63
4 ■ Working with layouts 65
5 ■ The Grid panel 94
6 ■ Resources, styles, control templates, and themes 119
7 ■ Events 147
8 ■ Oooh, shiny! 157
PART 3 APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT .....................................177
9 ■ Laying out a more complex application 179
10 ■ Commands 191
11 ■ Data binding with WPF 209
12 ■ Advanced data templates and binding 253
v
vi BRIEF CONTENTS
13 ■ Custom controls 299
14 ■ Drawing 315
15 ■ Drawing in 3D 352
PART 4 THE LAST MILE.......................................................... 371
16 ■ Building a navigation application 373
17 ■ WPF and browsers: XBAP, ClickOnce,
and Silverlight 390
18 ■ Printing, documents, and XPS 406
19 ■ Transition effects 427
20 ■ Interoperability 457
21 ■ Threading 474
contents
preface xvii
acknowledgments xix
about this book xxi
about the cover illustration xxv
PART 1 PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE...............................1
1 The road to Avalon (WPF) 3
1.1 The past and the present 4
Why Windows drawing is the way it is 5 ■ How we currently create
Windows UIs 7 ■ Why the web is the way it is 9 ■ How UI is
created on the web 10
1.2 Why Avalon/WPF 11
Taking advantage of modern hardware 12 ■ Using modern
software design 13 ■ Separating presentation logic from
presentation 14 ■ Making it simpler to code GUIs 15
1.3 Creating UI using WPF 16
Defining WPF UI with XAML 16 ■ Defining WPF UI through
code 17 ■ Defining WPF UI with tools 18 ■ Who does the
drawing 19 ■ Pixels versus vectors 19
1.4 Summary 20
vii
viii CONTENTS
2 Getting started with WPF and Visual Studio 2008 22
2.1 Your grandpa’s Hello, World! 23
Adding a button and button-handler to the window 25
Running Hello, World! 27 ■ The TextBlock control 27
2.2 The application definition 30
Defining application startup in XAML 30
Why define the application in XAML? 31
2.3 A tour of WPF in Visual Studio 2008 34
The XAML designer 35 ■ The Properties grid 38
Selection controls in Visual Studio 39 ■ The Document
Outline 39
2.4 Summary 40
3 WPF from 723 feet 41
3.1 Where does WPF fit in Windows? 42
Red bits and green bits 42 ■ Silverlight 43
3.2 Framework services 44
Base services 44 ■ Media services 51 ■ User interface
services 55 ■ Document services 56
3.3 Necessary and useful tools 58
Microsoft Expression family 59 ■ Visual Studio 60
Other tools 60
3.4 Summary 61
PART 2 THE BASICS.......................................................63
4 Working with layouts 65
4.1 The idea behind layout panels 66
4.2 The Canvas layout 68
Converting a Grid layout to a Canvas layout by modifying
the XAML 69 ■ Adding a Canvas to an existing layout 69
Using attached properties 72 ■ Setting up a Canvas
programmatically 73
4.3 The StackPanel layout 76
Adding scrolling support 80 ■ The Expander control 81
CONTENTS ix
4.4 The DockPanel layout 83
Defining a DockPanel in XAML 84 ■ Setting up a DockPanel
programmatically 85
4.5 The WrapPanel layout 86
4.6 Other layout options 88
Specialized layout panels 89 ■ The FlowDocument 89
4.7 Summary 93
5 The Grid panel 94
5.1 Getting started with the Grid layout panel 95
Modifying the Grid 96 ■ Grid specific properties 100
5.2 Using the Grid layout to build a calculator UI 101
Planning the calculator 101 ■ Laying out the calculator 102
Tweaking appearance 104
5.3 The Grid and localization 107
5.4 UniformGrid 109
5.5 Making the calculator work 110
Handling operations 110 ■ Genericizing the handlers 114
5.6 Summary 117
6 Resources, styles, control templates, and themes 119
6.1 Resources 120
Using standalone resource dictionaries 122 ■ Using resources
from code 124 ■ Dynamic resources 125
6.2 Styles 131
Styles based on other styles 133 ■ Implicitly applying styles 135
6.3 Control templates 136
Creating a control template 137 ■ ContentPresenters 137
Template binding 138 ■ Triggers 139
6.4 Themes 140
Using a specific theme 142 ■ Changing themes from code 145
6.5 Summary 146
7 Events 147
7.1 Routed events 148
Bubbling events 149 ■ Tunneling events 151