WPF chapter idea for my Silverlight book

[Laurent Bugnion, GalaSoft]

Hey group,

My editor and I decided to move my Silverlight book from the "Teach
Yourself" series to the "Unleashed" series. I will write more about this
move on my blog soon, but in the mean time, it means I got a little
space for a pet idea I got some time ago: Writing a (short) chapter
about WPF, focussing on the differences between WPF and Silverlight. I
have a couple of ideas what topics I could write about, but I'd love to
have the advice of such a panel of experts (ahem) on the following question:

What would you like to see in a Silverlight book about WPF?

Don't forget that we should frighten beginners (so maybe implementing a
pixel shader in unmanaged C++ code or crazy D3DImage compositions are
not quite in line with the rest of the book :))

Cheers,
Laurent

--
Laurent Bugnion [Microsoft MVP, MCP]
Software engineering, Blog: http://www.galasoft.ch
PhotoAlbum: http://www.galasoft.ch/pictures
Support children in Calcutta: http://www.calcutta-espoir.ch

[Corrado Cavalli]

What I'd like to see is a chapter focusing on main differences (basically
what's missing between the two) explaining when SL is more appropriate than
WPF (XBAP or SL? is one of biggest questions)
XBAP and ClickOnce applications might also be worth describing.
I won't dig too much into WPF details, there are tons of books doing this...

Corrado

[Laurent Bugnion, GalaSoft]

Hey Corrado,

Yes that was also my idea, exactly. I don't want to start talking about
the specifics of WPF, it's not my job here :) I agree that focussing
part of the chapter of differences is important, and especially a "Why
Silverlight and not XBAP" section. Great stuff. I also want to show a
little 3D example, just to make the user drool (and encourage them to
try WPF too :))

Thanks
Laurent

[Mike Brown]

While focusing on the differences would be good, I think it would also be great if you show how it would be possible to take the same codebase from Silverlight to the desktop.

[Laurent Bugnion, GalaSoft]

Hey Mike,

Excellent idea too. I got a class library that my readers and I develop
together, I could actually reuse it as is on the WPF platform.
Interesting idea. Thanks!

Laurent

> <http://www.galasoft.ch/>

> PhotoAlbum: http://www.galasoft.ch/pictures
> Support children in Calcutta: http://www.calcutta-espoir.ch

> <http://www.calcutta-espoir.ch/>

[Pavan Podila]

Hey Laurent,
            I was planning on doing something similar for my book :)) ie. talk a bit about Silverlight and compare it to WPF. I will have a chat with you on that when I get there. Hope you are Ok ?

--
the approach, rather than the solution
...o0O0o...
http://blog.pixelingene.com

[Laurent Bugnion, GalaSoft]

Hey Pavan,

Absolutely. Looking forward to that chat. Note that I will probably
write mine first though, because we are really close from publishing.

Greetings,
Laurent

> > <mailto:wpf-di...@googlegroups.com

[writ...@wintellect.com]

Here are some of the topics that I think might be interesting.

1. What are the differences between WPF and Silverlight? What can I
do in WPF that I can't do in Silverlight?
2. Why does Microsoft have these two separate yet similar UI
technologies?
3. Explain to me the WPF page model. Silvlight devs often say 'Page'
when referring to UserControls. How is that different from the WPF
Page?
4. Compare WPF XBAP to Silverlight.


Walt

On Aug 29, 1:34 am, "Laurent Bugnion, GalaSoft" <laur...@galasoft.ch>
wrote:

[Laurent Bugnion, GalaSoft]

Hey Walt,

Thanks. Very much in line with what I was thinking to do.

Cheers!
Laurent

[Karl Shifflett]

Laurent,

Here is my short list, I'll think more about this and add to it.

1. Using the Isolated Storage for application data to speed up the
application.
2. Single record data form.
3. Master detail data form.
4. Show users how to marshal updates back across the wire, only sending
changed or new data.
5. Silverlight as an Island or Richness or popup input form, verses
Silverlight the application that consumes all screen space. The Island
of Richness scenario would teach how to communicate between ASP.NET and
Silverlight.
6. The fundamental differences between WPF and Silverlight UI's.
Explaining that WPF applications have multiple windows, MDI, etc. and
Silverlight applications typically have one UserControl (form) that is
swapped out.
7. Methods of marshalling data to a Silverlight application (web
services, WCF, cross domain data access)
8. Silverlight application security. Show them where the .zap lives on
a client machine and that the code can be viewed by consumers.
9. Handling, reporting and logging exceptions in Silverlight
applications. ALL web applications MUST HAVE very robust exception
handling, reporting and logging built in.
10. How to display a modal dialog box in Silverlight that looks like
the Vista taskdialog and reports back the users selection.
11. Using Blend to write custom controls using the new Visual State
Manager.
12. Sample code in VB.NET (converted by a VB.NET programmer) and C#.
13. Handling of SQL Server data errors when form data is posted to the
server. Example: concurrency violations, index violations, constraint
violations.

If you love me, you'll tell them about my Ocean framework and that it
can generate their Silverlight code & UI and has a full featured
Silverlight library that gives them data validation for free and many
other things. I hope to publish Ocean this weekend or next weekend.


Cheers,

Karl

-----Original Message-----
From: wpf-di...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:wpf-di...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Laurent Bugnion,
GalaSoft
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 1:34 AM
To: wpf-di...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [WPF Disciples] WPF chapter idea for my Silverlight book

[Laurent Bugnion, GalaSoft]

Hey Karl :)

Wow, you give me enough content for a whole book here!! I just have one
chapter left, and a short one at that :) I am happy to see that I
handled already some of the topics you list, so that's good. Some others
are a bit too advanced for my target audience.

Just to be clear: This post was about one additional chapter,
underlining the differences between WPF and Silverlight. The rest of the
book is already written :)

Thanks and cheers!
Laurent

[Josh Smith]

Be sure to mention that in WPF Styles can be applied more than once, and that we have Triggers!

[Laurent Bugnion, GalaSoft]

Hey Josh,

It's a book to promote Silverlight, not to show how lame it is compared
to WPF :)

I love how you say "we" as opposed to "them doing that Silverstuff".

Laurent

> ASP.NET <http://ASP.NET> and

> > Silverlight.
> > 6. The fundamental differences between WPF and Silverlight UI's.
> > Explaining that WPF applications have multiple windows, MDI,
> etc. and
> > Silverlight applications typically have one UserControl (form)
> that is
> > swapped out.
> > 7. Methods of marshalling data to a Silverlight application (web
> > services, WCF, cross domain data access)
> > 8. Silverlight application security. Show them where the .zap
> lives on
> > a client machine and that the code can be viewed by consumers.
> > 9. Handling, reporting and logging exceptions in Silverlight
> > applications. ALL web applications MUST HAVE very robust exception
> > handling, reporting and logging built in.
> > 10. How to display a modal dialog box in Silverlight that looks
> like
> > the Vista taskdialog and reports back the users selection.
> > 11. Using Blend to write custom controls using the new Visual State
> > Manager.

> > 12. Sample code in VB.NET <http://VB.NET> (converted by a
> VB.NET <http://VB.NET> programmer) and C#.

[Josh Smith]

We rule!  :P