What WPF books would you recommend? [closed]

Solution 1:

I've found the following books very useful:

Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed - Adam Nathan
You mention you already have this book, however I wanted to give my opinion on it. It is a great book for the newcomer - it is printed in full color which is a great help for visualizing both xaml and concepts for WPF.

Essential Windows Presentation Foundation - Chris Anderson
This is also another great book for the newcomer. While it is not printed in color, it does give a great insight into how WPF works.

Pro WPF in C# 2008 - Matthew Macdonald
This is a great reference book - one that sits on my desk and is constantly referred too. However, I didn't feel is was as newbie friendly as the other two books above. This is the most recently released book (at the time of this posting), and has been updated for VS2008. This is useful, as there are some changes with the versions of WPF. I believe there is a VB.NET version available.

Programming WPF - Chris Sells & Ian Griffiths
Another great book - I wish this was available when I was first learning the framework.

Application = Code + Markup - Charles Petzold
This was the very first WPF I purchased. It is not very newbie friendly, and I wouldn't recommend it for a first-time-wpf'er. The fact that Xaml is not introduced until page 457 makes learning the technology for the real world very difficult. That said, this book is invaluable if you really want to understand how things work at a very deep level (which is also important to get the most of the framework.

The only book I would totally avoid is:

Professional WPF Programming - Chris Andrade et al.
While the content was Ok in this book, I just found the other books to be much clearer and delve to a much deeper level.

Hope this helps! WPF has a steep learning curve, but once you "get it", UI programming can actually become "fun"!

Solution 2:

Sams Teach Yourself WPF in 24 Hours.

I'm one of the authors, so my opinion is biased. Our book is structured around building four applications. It's not as in-depth as Nathan's or Petzold's books. Its intent is not to be exhaustive (or a reference), rather it is a means to coming up to speed quickly on WPF. Likewise, to provide a foundation so that you won't feel overwhelmed when you encounter some of the various nooks and crannies in the technology.