I’ve been accumulating a list of must-bookmark Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) developer resources that I thought I’d share.
At the top of the list of WPF-minded Tablet developers is Microsoft’s Shawn Van Ness. His blog (available here too) is a great place to start for ink-enabled WPF sample projects. I recommend downloading each of the projects, reading through them and trying to modify them in little ways. Start simple. Change the background color, change the ink color, add some text. Then try rearranging the layout, adding buttons, and working up to modifying events.
Shawn, Stefan Wick and a couple other Microsoft developers are also active on Microsoft’s WPF forum. This is a great place to post specific questions you have or lurk around to see what problems and solutions others have come across.
My favorite WPF blog-slash-site is theWpfBlog. It’s not a Tablet-oriented blog, however, it contains some excellent sample apps, complete with source code. Even better is that each sample specifies which CTP you need to actually run the sample. I love the way the blog is organized: Nice, large screenshots. Click on an image and run the WPF app in your browser. Click on another link and download the complete source code. Couldn’t be easier.
theWpfBlog also has some links to other WPF resources and blogs. A couple that I’ve found very useful are:
Daniel Lehenbauer’s WPF Blog — Great 3D resources
Lauren Lavoie–Some Avalon ideas
Tim Sneath
Charles Petzold Book blog–Great code snippets. Small, simple, perfect for learning.
Nick’s WPF blog
Microsoft’s Advanced Technology Center Avalon Team member blog–Great project ideas
I know I’m missing others. There are lots of blogs that touch on various WPF issues. Google is my favorite way of locating them. Just Google for “WPF” and whatever term you’re looking for. Generally this gets me what I need in the first page or too.
Finally, here are a few other sites with WPF content that I’ve found useful or interesting:
MSDN.Micorosft.com/winfx
CodeProject
CodeGuru–such as this great calculator project written with Expression Interactive Designer.
XamlShare
That’s it for now. I’ll write another post sorting out some of the sample projects that I’ve found most interesting, but until then, I want to point out this Math Equation writer from Valetin Iliescu. You just have to try it out. The applet is not about flashy Flash-like graphics. It’s about rendering documents…and for those of you who work in a forms company, this may get you thinking. Lots.