Mini-review & Competition Foundation Expression Blend 2

Source article

The only real tool available for creating Rich Media Applications, web-based animations, and games has been Flash‚ until now! WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and Silverlight have opened the door of Rich Media Application development to Microsoft .NET developers. With Microsoft's new Blend 2 and Visual Studio 2008, you can now create compelling Rich Media Applications complete with animations and even 3D!

Foundation Expression Blend 2: Building Applications in WPF and Silverlight book shows you how to take full advantage of Blend's new interface, together with and Silverlight's vastly improved designer-developer workflow, guiding you through every step of development from downloading and installing of the development environment through creating finished, functional projects. You'll learn how to create simple drawing applications with the InkCanvas, make tabbed and scrollable interfaces, as well as build fully featured media players, photo galleries, and interactive 3D designs.

Overview

Each chapter discusses major WPF and Silverlight features, provides a hands-on tutorial, and explains how that feature is implemented in the real world. In the end, you will have a collection of impressive WPF and Silverlight applications that can be added to your portfolio.

Whether you're an experienced .NET or web developer, or you're just starting out, this book will provide you with all you need to create Rich Media Applications with Expression Blend 2.

In this book you'll

Learn the Blend 2 and Visual Studio 2008 development environments
Create designs using Blend 2's unique tools
Use XAML and C# to add interactivity to your designs
Publish your Rich Media Applications to the Web using Silverlight

Summary of Contents

Chapter 1: Setting Up the WPF Development Environment
Chapter 2: The WPF/Blend Workflow and Your First WPF Application
Chapter 3: The Blend 2 Integrated Development Environment
Chapter 4: C# and XML
Chapter 5: Layout Elements
Chapter 6: The MediaElement
Chapter 7: ControlTemplates, Styles, and Custom UserControls
Chapter 8: Events and EventHandlers
Chapter 9: ObservableCollections and the Data Factory
Chapter 10: WPF and 3D
Chapter 11: DependencyProperies
Chapter 12: Case Study A: 3DImageProject
Chapter 13: Case Study B: TieFighterProject
Chapter 14: Case Study C: SilverlightPagingSystemProject
Chapter 15: Case Study D: SilverlightVideoPlayerProject
Appendix: WPF and Silverlight Resources

Who is this book for?

Foundation Expression Blend 2: Building Applications in WPF and Silverlight targets those who are familiar with the basics of OOP and have some experience in languages (such as JavaScript, C++, Visual Basic, java, And C) but have not used WPF. Yet, those who understand even just a little bit about OOP could also benefit from this book.

Conclusion

Foundation Expression Blend 2: Building Applications in WPF and Silverlight is a consistent step-by-step tutorial that guides you gently from the very basics of setting up the development environment to completely mastering Expression Blend 2 software UI. While unfolding the content, the author uses a friendly mentor-like approach, covering all elements with care in explanation and detail.

The book is very well-structured. Every chapter starts with an outline of what is covered in it and ends with a complimentary summary of what has been achieved. Next to the great code tips an tricks it teaches you how to organize your planning and workflow. Additionally, the book does a wonderful job concluding with four real world case studies, which put into practice all the knowledge gathered up to that point.

We highly recommend this book to anyone interested in building apps with WPF and Silverlight, with little programing background. It is excellent to serve as both a reference book and a learning material.

Competition

We've got a brand new mini-review and competition of Foundation Flex for Designers. The friendly people of friends of ED are giving away 5 books!

All you need to do, to enter the competition is, download the sample PDF and finish the following sentence:

"Blend 2 is intended to be used by..."

Send your answer to this e-mail address, before Wednesday the 22nd of April 2008. Don't forget to include your post address and phone number (required for international shipping) in the e-mail.