Essential WPF

WPF for Microsoft Surface by Tomer Shamam

I've always dreamed about having an interactive table in my living room, such one that I can interact with, play table games with my friends, even watch TV and plan trips. Thanks to Microsoft, my dream comes true. I'm barely can wait to put my hand on such a surface, or even write WPF applications for this beautiful toy. Kevin Moore is helping the WPF team with a few tweaks in core controls to ensure that they play nicely on Surface. Prepare for more Input APIs in WPF, such as Fingers, Objects such...

Code and PPTX from my WPF Lecture at Microsoft by Tomer Shamam

Thanks to all the participants in my WPF lecture today, at Microsoft Ranana. You have been a very pleased audience and I was very happy to lecture in front of you. As I promised, here are the presentation , and code files. · To open the presentation file you should use Office 2007, or Office 2007 Compatibility Pack for older versions.

Compiled XAML = BAML not IL by Tomer Shamam

Yesterday I lectured about XAML and the following question was asked: Why XAML is compiled into BAML and not directly into IL for better performance? Before giving the correct answer, I want to explain what BAML is. There are actually two ways for handling a XAML file: Loose or Compiled. Loose XAML file should be parsed at runtime, and can be deployed as a simple XML file, locally, remotely or embedded into the assembly. Compiled is a XAML file marked as "Page" in Visual Studio (<Page Include...

WPF new 3D Book by Tomer Shamam

Charles Petzold is writting a new WPF 3D Book! This book is now available for pre-ordering . Charles says that "it will have plenty of pictures", "it will be mostly XAML except when code is required", "it will help make you a sexier WPF programmer. I can barely wait to put my 3D glasses and to become a sexier developer :-)

WPF Lecture at Microsoft Ranana by Tomer Shamam

I'm lecturing about WPF on May 29 2007, at Microsoft, Ranana. Click here if you want to register for free.

WinHEC 2007 by Tomer Shamam

Thanks to Alon Flies, I put my hand on the WinHEC 2007 video lectures. You can find Bill Gates Keynote very interesting. Click here , sit and enjoy.

WPF Data Templates and the Composite Pattern by Tomer Shamam

WPF Data Template is the ultimate utility for generating view from data. To work with Data Templates correctly, one should design the data first, than it should let the data to build the view. At first place it sounds very weird because up until WPF you built the view first, and then bind it to data. Let’s say that you have to build a composite dynamic view, such as a weird table, which has composite headers and values binded to data. For example: As you can see, "Master Header" is the main header...

WPF is O.O, Control Templates are not! by Tomer Shamam

The best feature in WPF, which I very appreciate, is that WPF is a real O.O framework. Its services are exposed as a pile of polymorphic types, having common base classes and interface implementation. As every aspect in the real life (especially in software), not everything is perfect and so is WPF. One of the things that I'm a little disappointed with is Control Templates. The big Why Control Template is a strong mechanism in WPF. With Control Templates, a control’s logic is totally separated from...

WPF - Good Design Principles by Tomer Shamam

Last few days, I saw a WPF Video Post that demonstrates how to start a blast graphic effect, based on image series. See this link . Yap, this is a very cool blast, but IMHO this is not the right way to go with WPF. The tips bellow will help you to redesign the application correctly, using WPF fundamentals. Tip 1: Design your model/data to support Data Binding (provide property for almost everything). Do not forget that data-binding in WPF is everywhere! Tip 2 : Do not hesitate to use Dependency Properties...

Blend was Released! by Tomer Shamam

The long awaited, WPF designing tool, Expression Blend is now Released! MSDN Subscribers are free to download it from Microsoft. Others, what can I say, should pay $499 :-), but it worth each $1.

WPF Dynamic Theme by Tomer Shamam

When I first read about WPF, I was very happy to hear that WPF supports themes. After a short reading, I had understand that a WPF theme is actually a XAML file which is automatically loaded as you run a WPF application on different operating systems such as Windows XP, Vista, etc, running with a different theme (luna, royale, etc). Actually, there is an option to create a new theme to work with WPF, but it is too burden and difficult to create. It is very nice that WPF provides an option to choose...