Introduction to WPF

What is WPF

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a next-generation presentation system for building Windows client applications with visually stunning user experiences. With WPF, you can create a wide range of both standalone and browser-hosted applications. 

The core of WPF is a resolution-independent and vector-based rendering engine that is built to take advantage of modern graphics hardware. WPF extends the core with a comprehensive set of application-development features that include Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), controls, data binding, layout, 2-D and 3-D graphics, animation, styles, templates, documents, media, text, and typography. WPF is included in the Microsoft .NET Framework, so you can build applications that incorporate other elements of the .NET Framework class library.

This overview is intended for newcomers and covers the key capabilities and concepts of WPF. Experienced WPF developers seeking a review of WPF may also find this overview useful.

Programming with WPF

WPF exists as a subset of .NET Framework types that are for the most part located in the System.Windows namespace. If you have previously built applications with .NET Framework using managed technologies like ASP.NET and Windows Forms, the fundamental WPF programming experience should be familiar; you instantiate classes, set properties, call methods, and handle events, all using your favorite .NET Framework programming language, such as C# or Visual Basic.

To support some of the more powerful WPF capabilities and to simplify the programming experience, WPF includes additional programming constructs that enhance properties and events: dependency properties and routed events. We will discuss Dependency Properties and Routed Events in another chapter.

References

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa970268(v=vs.110).aspx

A Chapter from a book connected to my course

I managed to find a book in the library connected directly to my subject. The book's name is "ASP.NET in VB.NET". I read few chapters from the book and found them quite interesting and useful in future for me. Here I am writing the summary of the chapter I liked most so far.


The Evolution of VB.NET

Traditional ASP development was restricted to the VBScript programming language, which was first developed as a basic scripting language for writing macros and other simple code that would be used by another application. VBScript was never intended for sophisticated, interactive web applications and for that reason expert programmers had to strain the language to its limit to create first-rate ASP pages. To get around many limitations in VBScript, advanced pages needed to rely on separate components written in other languages, which generally had to be installed and configured separately on the web server. In the end even though VBScript was intended to be easier to use than ordinary Visual Basic writing advanced ASP pages actually became much more complicated because of the additional effort needed to circumvent VBScript’s limitations.

Just replacing VBScript with Visual Basic would have been a significant advantage. Some of the features Visual Basic 6 offers that VBScript lacks include the following.

· Access to the platform services: VBScript on the other hand is automatically isolated by the scripting host and has many security-related restrictions.
· Typed programming. VBScript doesn’t allow us to strict control over data types, and works with special ‘variant’ variables instead. Which are supposed to be easier to use. Unfortunately, they also introduce data type conversion problems and difficult-to-detect errors.
· Event-driven programming. Unlike Visual Basic, VBScript is notoriously disorganized and has little flexibility to group or organize code so that code can be easily debugged and reused.
· Support for objects. Visual Basic doesn’t have perfect object-oriented features, but they are still light years over what VBScript can accomplish.

However, ASP.NET has completely skipped over this stage in evolution and moved directly to the advanced capabilities of Visual Bacis.NET. This latest version of Visual Basic is a complete redesign that answers years of unmet complaints and extends the VB Language into new territory. Some of the new features include the following.

· Structured error handling. The end of the aggravating “On Error Goto” construct has finally arrived. VB.NET introduces .NET’s new standard: clean, concise, structured exception handling. We can see in chapter 11
· Language refinements. Every aspect of the VB language has been tweaked and refined. We can now overload functions, declare and assign variables on the same line, and use shortened assignment syntax.
· Strong typing. Even Visual Basic 6 performed some automatic variable conversions that could cause unusual bugs. VB.NET allows us to rein in our program and prevent possible errors with strict type checking
· True object-oriented programming. Inheritance, interfaces, polymorphism, constructors, shared members and abstract classes and the list goes on, and Visual Basic.NET integrates them all into the one language.

The list of new words

Strain
Part of Speech: verb
Synonyms: filter, puree, screen, separate, sieve, sift

First-rate
Part of Speech: adjective
Synonyms: a-one, classy, dandy, excellent, first-class, super, topnotch, tops

Circumvent
Part of Speech: verb
Synonyms: avoid, baffle, balk, bypass, cheat, check, deceive, defraud, detour, dupe, elude, encompass, entrap, evade, foil, fool, frustrate, mislead

Isolated
Part of Speech: adjective
Synonyms: alone, apart, hidden, insular, insulated, lone, lonely, private, random

Notorious
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: Known widely and unfavorably.
Synonyms: common, infamous