Pro WPF in C# 2010 Book Review

I have the first and second edition of this book (Pro WPF: Windows Presentation Foundation in .NET 3.0, Pro WPF in C# 2008), so I was hesitant in buying this version. I had not destroyed the Pro WPF in C# 2008 book, like I did Pro WPF: Windows Presentation Foundation in .NET 3.0, so I didn’t really need a new copy of the book. I am glad that I did buy it because there are plenty of new features covered in this version making it worth the purchase, at least to me. This version of the book has also been reorganized. Chapters have been moved and renamed to fit new functionality. Here is what is new in this release: --New DataGrid, Calendar, WebBrowser, Ribbon (separate download), and DatePicker controls --Visual State Manager --Easing Functions --Cached Composition (Bitmap caching) --Windows 7 taskbar and multitouch support Matthew has added content for all the topics listed above, Some of the highlights of the book I like: --The coverage of animation easing. --The new Windows 7 taskbar coverage. --His in-depth coverage of printing. --His Custom Elements chapter. --The new chapter on Application Add-Ins. --The chapter on using ClickOnce with WPF. --Everything is gone into in depth. This is not a brush over the topic book. --The usability of the code makes the book all that much more valuable. The book focuses on WPF only. It has a few pages on LINQ, but that i s about it as far as the rest of the .NET 3.5 framework goes. In other words, the book does not cover how to best use WPF in relationship to WCF, WF, or LINQ. This does not take anything away from the book because Matthew does not claim that the book does this. I only mention it because his ASP.NET 3.5 book does go into LINQ application integration. The downloadable code is very well organized and is very usable. I highly recommend this book to anyone getting into WPF with .NET 4.0.