Learning WPF at work

Question

There are some projects that could use WPF at work, for the sake of adopting new technologies.

But the problem is, I can't jump start WPF easily. I recognize the learning curve is steeper than Winforms. Though even with Winforms one can start doing UIs and programmatically customize them in a day.

So the problem is:

1. I don't have any resource to quickly learn the fundamentals of WPF at work. I can't read a book from cover to cover before I do the simplest of things.

2. Most tutorials on the net, just does things that excludes the fundamentals. i.e. they post partial xaml code I can't even put into my xaml code correctly (VS highlights them in red).

3. I can't justify using WPF over Winforms where there is no significant gain for prety much all projects I can think of. And the learning curve just makes things worse.

So I can't suggest my manager to use this tech over the traditional Winforms, but I want to.

Is there a guide or a tutorial on the net, or a video that explains the fundamentals of WPF so I can explore everything else on my own, except the more complicated tasks?

Answer 1

Well, the basics are there. You can drag and drop controls onto a XAML surface in VS.NET 2008 just about as easily as you can with Windows Forms. Sure, there's the binding syntax stuff, but getting started isn't too bad.

But you DEFINITELY need to buy a good book on it. You don't need to have read it from cover to cover in order to get started. A decent book will have you up and running in a chapter or two, and you can take it from there. Just make sure that whatever book you buy, it was published after .NET 3.5 (and SP1 preferably) came out.

Also, understand WHY you want to use WPF. Is it just because it's new? Then you're right, that's not a good enough answer. WPF does have some big benefits though:

• A powerful binding expression syntax that actually works
• No need to repaint your own windows in response to WM_PAINT messages _ (corrollary to the previous point) It's much easier to owner-draw and make your own controls
• MS is spending a LOT of effort to actually develop it
• MS is spending minimal effort on developing WinForms

Answer 2

• Fundamental of WPF video from Mix07.
• Windows Client .NET get started section has lots of WPF Videos.
• Channel 9 WPF content.
• Windows Presentation Unleashed is a very good book.
• MSDN content for WPF.
• MSDN magazine articles on WPF.

Answer 3

If you need 2d/3d data visualisation WPF will pay by itself quickly and it's very evolving...

Personally I've got in that boat because all 3d hardware acceleration (opengl) wrapper in c# are dying so the solution for a maintened 3d looks like wpf or xna...

I'd suggest you get either expression blend or vs2010 beta ... vs2008 just don't speak wpf enough to help someone who doesn't know exactly what he's trying to do.