Developing WPF Applications

SummaryIn Chapter 10, you learned how to build the data access layer of an application. To implement its logic, you used the classes of the System.Data namespace. These classes retrieve and work with relational data, which is a common requirement of many business applications. You are now ready to look at how users will interact with your application. Users interact with an application through the user interface layer. This layer, in turn, interacts with the business logic layer, which, in turn, interacts with the data access layer. In this chapter, you will learn how to build a user interface layer with the .NET Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). WPF is commonly used to develop desktop business productivity applications running on Windows 7 and above. Business productivity applications target business users who need to query and update data stored in a backend database. It consists of a comprehensive set of application-development features that include Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), controls, data binding, and layout. The concepts discussed in this chapter will also lay a foundation for Chapter 13, in which we look at creating the new Windows Store app user interface for Windows 8. These applications use a similar model for creating interfaces with XAML and data binding controls.