Chapter 26: Windows Presentation Foundation


Overview

Version 3.0 of the .NET Framework includes everything in previous versions of the Framework and a lot more. That means everything the earlier chapters explains about applications, forms, controls, Visual Basic code, error handling, drawing, printing, reports, and so forth, work exactly as before.

Tip 

In fact, the new components in .NET Framework 3.0 sit beside the older version 2.0 pieces, so you can think of version 3.0 as providing add-on capabilities, rather than as a new version that includes the version 2.0 features. Microsoft calls it an “additive” release, as opposed to a “generational” release. See http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/aa480198.aspx for more background information.

One of the largest new additions in .NET Framework 3.0 is Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). WPF provides a whole new method for building user interfaces. It provides tools for separating the user interface from the code behind the interface so that the two pieces could potentially be built by separate user interface designers and Visual Basic developers. It includes a new Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) that lets you build a user interface by using declarative statements rather than executable code. XAML lets you determine the size, position, and other properties of the controls on a form. It lets you define styles that can be shared among many controls, and it lets you define transformations and animations that affect the controls.

This chapter provides an introduction to WPF. It explains how to use WPF to build applications using either XAML code or Visual Basic code. It also explains how to use Visual Basic code

WMF is a huge topic. It basically reproduces all of the functionality of Windows Forms programming, and then some. This chapter cannot hope to cover all of the techniques possible in WPF. Instead, it introduces some of the more important concepts and explains how to build basic WPF forms. Appendix H describes the controls that are currently available for use in WPF applications.




Visual Basic 2005 with  .NET 3.0 Programmer's Reference
Visual Basic 2005 with .NET 3.0 Programmer's Reference
ISBN: 470137053
EAN: N/A
Year: 2007
Pages: 417

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net