The Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) blends application user interface, documents, and media content to provide richer control, design, and development of the visual aspects of Windows programs.In this book, author Matthew MacDonald shows you how WPF really works. His no-nonsense, practical advice will get you quickly and easily building high-quality WPF applications. MacDonald takes you through a thorough investigation of the more advanced aspects of WPF, and its relation to other elements of the WinFX stack and the .NET Framework 3.5, to complete your understanding of WPF and C# 2008.
Matthew MacDonald is a science and technology writer with well over a dozen books to his name. He's particularly known for his books about building websites, which include a do-it-from-scratch tutorial (Creating a Website: The Missing Manual), a look at cutting-edge HTML5 (HTML5: The Missing Manual), and a WordPress primer (WordPress: The Missing Manual). He's also written a series of books about programming on and off the Web with .NET, teaches programming at Ryerson University, and is a three-time Microsoft MVP.
This book does a good job of introducing the WPF environment as used with C# 2008. I've so far found only one slight mistake. This book does not cover all the elements of C#, but only those related to the new WPF namespaces and practices. For someone with a background in programming, it is enough to get started in the C# 2008 WPF environment, though some online searches and/or an additional reference book would be recommended if you aren't already familiar with C#.
I'm using this as a reference while I write my first WPF based program. I haven't read all of it as of yet. I've read perhaps 70% of it in a methodical fashion and pulled bits out of all of it.
This is/was one of the core WPF guide for me for almost 18 months, beautifully explains advanced WPF concepts that are really hard to explain, (and with comparison to other WPF Books who end up mixing those concept in a big mix. A must have from Beginner to Intermediate level user on WPF.
On the down low, I won't recommend this book for highly advanced WPF Concepts, it misses many advanced stuff like custom controls (specifically ItemsControl), AutomationPeers, Advanced HitTesting, Adorners etc., and I felt that Geometry has not been explained properly.