This book is a thorough examination of the WPF 3.5 technology - its architecture, what you can do with it, and how to do it. It is directed at professional C# developers.

The book is written in a systematic, comprehensible way. A chapter starts with a basic introduction and includes graphics of the respective WPF sub-class hierarchy. The chapter's subject is then steadily explored in more and more detail. For instance, at the beginning, there are five pages just on resolution independence. XAML is explained in-depth, starting with the four ways of loading and compiling: Code-only, code and uncompiled XAML, code and compiled XAML, and XAML only; this is followed by the specifics of the XAML grammar (markup extensions, attached properties, etc.). There are seven pages on non-rectangular windows and sixteen pages on playing sound on different OS versions. As the book goes on, the author really shines in describing complex subjects, such as 3-D drawing, in a logically understandable way. Towards the end, there is a tabular overview of features missing in WPF compared to Windows Forms, with recommendations on when to choose one over the other, or both of them together, and how to mix them best.

The volume also contains lots of small, but precious pieces of surplus information, such as: Properties of WPF controls can be set in any order, without causing any change in behavior; or: By using an overloaded version of DependencyObject.SetValue in code, you can attach a value for any dependency property, even if it is not defined as an attached property (which is not possible in XAML). In addition, the author mentions various quirks of WPF, and how to get around them, if possible. Example: When you restart an animation that is almost complete, and the animation had the current position as the starting point, the animation will appear to slow down. Another example: Windows Vista always requires permission elevation for a setup, even though, in the case of Click Once, this makes no sense. As a consequence, a Click Once WPF application, on Vista, cannot be installed under a regular user account; the user is forced to install it under an admin account - which defeats the purpose of using Click Once in the first place...

Developers are all-too-familiar with the Pareto principle: 80% of the tasks of a project can be solved easily" in 20% of the time, but solving the other 20% takes at least 80% of the time. If you want to use WPF in a productive way, I strongly recommend taking the time to study this book. Admittedly, at 1040 pages, this is quite some endeavor. However, you will be rewarded many times over, as you will be saved a lot of frustration and unexpected delays, when you already know from the beginning how to solve much of the other 20%.