Writing Visual Basic WPF Applications

The .Net platform. The Common Language Runtime (CLR) and Intermediate Language. Visual Basic, its alternatives and variations. The Visual Basic environment. Introducing object orientation. Good practice.

Variable Types, Scope and Lifetime. Nullable types. Arrays.

If, For Next, Do While/Until, For Each, Select Case.

Subroutines and functions. Argument passing mechanisms. Named and optional arguments. Public, Private and the use of modules.

Software engineering and components. Classes, objects and the use of 'New'. Encapsulation. Namespaces and assemblies. Benefits of object orientation.

The use of 'Overridable' and 'Overrides'. Benefits of inheritance. Hiding and Shadows. Abstract classes. Constructors and initialization. Casting. Collection classes. Generics. Collection examples.

The benefits of interfaces. Interfaces vs classes. Defining and implementing an interface. Common interfaces.

Comparison with 'Err' and 'On Error'. Try and Catch. Finally. Custom Exceptions.

The .Net Stream architecture. Streams, Readers and Writers. Serialization and SOAP. The Socket and Tcp classes. Basic network communication. Clients and multithreaded servers.

What WPF is for. XAML. WPF and Silverlight. The technologies. The tools. Patterns and Model-View-ViewModel.

What is XAML?. XAML details. Designing a window. Basic controls. Properties and attached properties. Panels and layouts. Code-behind and simple events.

The event architecture. Event bubbling and routed events. Tunnelling and preview events. Commands.

Panels. Canvas and absolute positioning. Wrap and Stack Panels. Margins, sizes and alignment. DockPanel. Grid and UniformGrid. Splitting and scrolling. Controls as containers.

How WPF controls work. Drawing and presentation. Defining and using styles. Control templates. Triggers and the Visual State Manager. Custom controls. Adapting to themes.

Connections, commands and readers. DataSets and adapters. Typed DataSets. DataSource controls. Data-aware controls and grids. Stored procedures and transactions. Designing and implementing multi-tier applications.

Connecting controls. Binding to objects. Binding modes. Syntax alternatives. Using data contexts. Events and updating. Hierarchies and customization. Managing data sources.

Using Windows Forms from WPF. Using WPF from Windows Forms. Compatibility considerations. Integrating existing application code.

Shapes and colours. Designing a visually interesting user interface. Creating graphics dynamically. Bitmaps and images. Storyboards and animation.

Coordinate systems and geometry. The ubiquitous triangle. Cameras and lighting. Models, meshes and materials. Building shapes. Practical examples.

What Silverlight is (and what it isn't). Silverlight site architecture. XAML. Containers, shapes and controls. Designing the user experience. Storyboards and animation. Rendering and transforms. Interaction and code-behind. Images, effects and projections. Exposing Silverlight to JavaScript. Binding.

How LINQ works. Implicitly-typed variables and Lambda expressions. The LINQ syntax. Using LINQ with collections, databases and XML. Parallel LINQ (PLINQ).

Introducing XML. XmlTextReader. Using the Document Object Model (DOM) and XMLDocument. XMLDataDocuments. Creating XML using XmlWriter. LINQ and the 'X' classes.

Passing parameters ByVal and ByRef. Variable length parameter lists. Extension methods. Operator overloading. Dispose and Using. Delegates and multicast delegates. Calling Dlls and the Windows API (PInvoke).

Supporting dynamic languages. ExpandoObject. DynamicObject. Office support.

Parallel execution. Parallel For and ForEach. Tasks, threads and the thread pool. Priorities and background threads. Background workers. Synchronization and monitors. Controlling tasks and threads. Starting and controlling processes.

XCopy deployment. DLLs and the Global Assembly Cache (GAC). Signing. strong names and versioning. No-touch and click-once deployment.