WPF 4: Unleashed

This is an excellent book, very well written, with a lot of details on WPF 4. I am a long time C++/C# developer, and I am just starting out with newer technologies like WPF and Silverlight, and this book gave me everything I needed to get into more depth with WPF as well as Silverlight (since they are a lot alike). It covers the basics while still covering things in more detail. I, for one, like to really know how things work behind the scenes and this book gives a good description of how things came about with WPF, as well as how it really does its magic. Great book! I would also recomment Silverlight 4 Unleashed for anyone looking for Silverlight help, but it also complements this book very well. While this book gives you great knowledge of how things work, Silverlight 4 Unleashed takes you into the MVVM world showing you how to separate your UI from the logic code. Both are excellent books and should give you everything you need to move into this realm of development.

It's not very often you find a technical book printed in color. But for WPF to really shine, you've got to see it in color! Kudos to the writer and publisher for making this happen. I wish more technical books were printed in color!I've purchased the older edition of this book, as well as this newer edition. This is probably not the easiest WPF book to read on the market right now. The first 2 chapters will either bore you or scare you. The author goes into great length about demystifying XAML, routed events, etc. These are things, that if you know nothing about WPF, will almost put you to sleep. Best skip to Chapter 3 and read the Fundamentals of WPF and once you have enough familiarity with WPF, go back and read Chapters 1 and 2.The rest of the book does a fairly good job at presenting WPF-related topics. But this book is not very focused as it tries to show you a little bit of everything about WPF which can be both good and bad depending on what you are looking for. So, if you are an enterprise developer with a deadline, this will be a good introductory book, but you'll want to find another book written specifically for enterprise development with WPF.Overall, I would recommend this book to the would-be WPF developer if you are looking for an introductory book about WPF and to get yourself to start thinking outside of the WinForms mindset [box].

This is my third and so far my favorite book on Microsoft's WPF 4 technology. Very readable take on what can be a confusing topic.The book makes good use of color making it a more enjoyable read. I was satisfied with the comprehensiveness of coverage and technical depth. However, I'll need to spend more time working through additional examples before I will feel confident with the technology.It is probably best to read through the chapters sticking to the main body and ignoring the side notes and tips on the first pass. This will help you get the big picture without getting lost in the details.Overall, I thought the book is well written and would recommend it.

I am required to read a lot of books like this for my job and some are great("Code Complete", "Programming Pearls" etc.) and some like this one present everything you need to know but they do it in such a boring fashion you want to tear out your hair or fall asleep every time you read it. This book does have everything in it that I needed covered, so I give it high marks for being a VERY complete reference but I can't give it any more than three stars because reading it was like being forced to watch paint dry. Put it this way reading the entire book "The C++ Standard Library" by Nicolai M. Josuttis was better than how dry this book was even though the technologies they cover are completely different of course. So high marks for everything you ever wanted to know about WPF presented in manner that was easy to understand. Low marks for being incredibly boring. That lands it square in the middle with three stars.

I found that the book was pretty good at getting me started with WPF and showing me a lot of what it can do. I have been a programmer for a while but have hardly dipped my toe into the XAML pool.The illusrtations were good and it was helpful being able to see what was rendered rather than just imagine it, or have to get the source from a CD. That being said, buy the physical book, not the Kindle version. The Kindle book was organized into positions instead of pages so it was hard to tell how much progress I was making through the book. Also, occasionally the graphics, in this case code snippets and XAML in color and illustrations were broken or missing.

Very clear and encompassing, and a lovely book. The explanations are exact, and there're a lot of useful samples. Though I'd expect more insights in useful issues (like manipulating data grids) on the account of graphics. Another remark: the downloaded sample code isn't arranged in a way that enables you easily locate the code in the book, and there are even code excerpts in the book that may not be found in the downloaded code, what's pretty annoying.