Windows Forms Programming in C#
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Much of the publicity around .NET has focused on using .NET to build Webbased applications. Many developers, however, are using .NET to build traditional Windows-based applications. Microsoft has provided a package called Windows Forms, or WinForms, which makes the development of these apps easier and faster than ever. Chris Sells has written the definitive book to help experienced Microsoft developers master the use of this powerful toolkit. Based on the experience he has gained developing with and teaching WinForms for the last two years, he goes beyond other books currently on the market. Chris has a critically acclaimed writing style that allows him to keep the material concise and easy to follow. He concentrates on what you won't find in the documentation, giving developers the information they really need. Reviewers are already calling this "the best WinForms book around", "the definitive book for every Windows Programmer", and "without a doubt the best and most useful C#/WinFOrms book I have ever read." We will be publishing a Visual Basic .NET version later this year.
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Everything changes in the Microsoft .NET Framework and the C# language, including the creation of graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Windows Forms Programming in C# explains the Windows Forms (WinForms) environment to programmers who have some experience with .NET programming, and in the process (thanks to a clear and deliberate expository style) reveals a lot about .NET to less experienced developers. The overall effect is that almost every reader comes away with better knowledge of .NET, not just its user-interface libraries and behaviors.
Author Chris Sells takes care to balance code samples with explanatory text, meaning that most chapters take on a characteristic "code, explanation, effect" style (in which "effect" is usually documented with a screen shot). This approach is effective, and serves both to answer "How do I..." questions and inspire "I should give that a try!" exploration. Once in a while, callouts will link two or more screen shots with a sample of code, graphically illustrating how code affects the appearance of a form and how it's represented in the Visual Studio development environment. On top of his clear teaching style, Sells calls attention to workarounds for shortcomings in the .NET environment (particularly where similar limitations don't exist in Microsoft Foundation Classes), helping to improve programmer productivity in the growing .NET environment. --David Wall Topics covered: How to use the WinForms environment within the Microsoft .NET Framework. Dialog boxes, drawing, printing, and controls all are covered by means of explanations and lots of illustrative examples, and there's good coverage of the WinForms event model, too. An appendix compares MFC and the .NET Framework. |
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| 03-21-06 | 2 | 10\13 |
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I'm a Java programmer who finished reading O'Reilly's "Programming C#" (very good book), and wanted to get started in Windows Forms programming. Chapters 1 and 2 were decent and Appendix B was an excellent introduction to Delegates and Events.
The rest of the book, however, was very weak. All it did was give a brief summary of some of the windows forms components (and the coverage was very weak). If you want to learn about a component you are going to have to look it up it on MSDN. I was hoping the book would give me something other than what I can get by looking at an API. I was really hoping there would at least be a few chapters on how to design Windows Forms applications - there was nothing. The easy part is learning how to use a component. The difficult part is learning best practices about design an application - something this book didn't touch. Also, I'm not sure how the rest of the books in the "Microsoft .NET Development Series" are, but I think it's very cheap and dishonest to make a book 'appear' weighty. The book is 680 pages, but the margins, line spacing, and text are all very large. This book easily could have been half its size. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-09-07 19:15:27 EST)
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| 03-21-06 | 2 | 11\14 |
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I'm a Java programmer who finished reading O'Reilly's "Programming C#" (very good book), and wanted to get started in Windows Forms programming. Chapters 1 and 2 were decent and Appendix B was an excellent introduction to Delegates and Events.
The rest of the book, however, was very weak. All it did was give a brief summary of some of the windows forms components (and the coverage was very weak). If you want to learn about a component you are going to have to look it up it on MSDN. I was hoping the book would give me something other than what I can get by looking at an API. I was really hoping there would at least be a few chapters on how to design Windows Forms applications - there was nothing. The easy part is learning how to use a component. The difficult part is learning best practices about design an application - something this book didn't touch. Also, I'm not sure how the rest of the books in the "Microsoft .NET Development Series" are, but I think it's very cheap and dishonest to make a book 'appear' weighty. The book is 680 pages, but the margins, line spacing, and text are all very large. This book easily could have been half its size. (Review Data Last Updated: 2008-08-20 04:44:32 EST)
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| 03-20-06 | 2 | 8\11 |
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I'm a Java programmer who finished reading O'Reilly's "Programming C#" (very good book), and wanted to get started in Windows Forms programming. Chapters 1 and 2 were decent and Appendix B was an excellent introduction to Delegates and Events.
The rest of the book, however, was very weak. All it did was give a brief summary of some of the windows forms components (and the coverage was very weak). If you want to learn about a component you are going to have to look it up it on MSDN. I was hoping the book would give me something other than what I can get by looking at an API. I was really hoping there would at least be a few chapters on how to design Windows Forms applications - there was nothing. The easy part is learning how to use a component. The difficult part is learning best practices about design an application - something this book didn't touch. Also, I'm not sure how the rest of the books in the "Microsoft .NET Development Series" are, but I think it's very cheap and dishonest to make a book 'appear' weighty. The book is 680 pages, but the margins, line spacing, and text are all very large. This book easily could have been half its size. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-04-11 08:54:56 EST)
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| 03-16-06 | 5 | 3\8 |
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The second edition is out that covers Windows forms V2, you may want to buy it instead. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-08 16:50:27 EST)
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| 03-15-06 | 5 | 2\5 |
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The second edition is out that covers Windows forms V2, you may want to buy it instead. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-12-13 10:41:45 EST)
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| 03-15-06 | 5 | (NA) |
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This is THE windows forms books for developers that already have GUI experience. I have found this book very helpful in moving from MFC to Windows Forms. The only problem is that whenever I want it, it is hidden someone's desk, the less use books are easy to find in the bookshelf!
If you have never done match GUI programming, then you may want to first read a "slower" book on Windows Forms to get a gentler introduction. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-07 08:53:48 EST)
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| 01-10-06 | 5 | 5\7 |
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I got this book after having already done quite a bit of WinForms programming and found it a compelling read. I'd have read after a platform/language primer but before doing any actual WinForms work, had I had it in my possession at that time.
Its the first programming book in some time that I read as a 'page turner' - it's that well-written (in prose terms). It's also very well copy-edited, which shows that a lot of effort went into getting the book just right, which can't be said for all books (I guess the gap between release of .NET 1.0&1.1 and this book allowed for that more than in other books). As for the relevance of the information, I believe it to be very relevant to a wide variety of application types, regardless of that being the main criticism I see in other reviews here. I guess that comes from the fact that you can't please all the people all the time. Still, I'd venture it comes as close as any other book is going to come. For me it's very near the top of the must-have books if you're going to be writing non-trivial production WinForms apps. One thing to be aware of is that the .NET 2.0 version is on the way in the coming months, making it Essential unless you're not in a position to use 2.0 stuff. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-08 16:50:27 EST)
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| 01-09-06 | 5 | 3\5 |
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I got this book after having already done quite a bit of WinForms programming and found it a compelling read. I'd have read after a platform/language primer but before doing any actual WinForms work, had I had it in my possession at that time.
Its the first programming book in some time that I read as a 'page turner' - it's that well-written (in prose terms). It's also very well copy-edited, which shows that a lot of effort went into getting the book just right, which can't be said for all books (I guess the gap between release of .NET 1.0&1.1 and this book allowed for that more than in other books). As for the relevance of the information, I believe it to be very relevant to a wide variety of application types, regardless of that being the main criticism I see in other reviews here. I guess that comes from the fact that you can't please all the people all the time. Still, I'd venture it comes as close as any other book is going to come. For me it's very near the top of the must-have books if you're going to be writing non-trivial production WinForms apps. One thing to be aware of is that the .NET 2.0 version is on the way in the coming months, making it Essential unless you're not in a position to use 2.0 stuff. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-12-13 10:41:45 EST)
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| 01-03-06 | 1 | 9\18 |
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"...I had hoped it would be a convenient and quick reference to such questions as "how do I use FolderBrowserDialog and/or OpenFileDialog to open a file in my C# program?" but although these standard components are indexed in the book the discussion of them in the book is shorter than this review I am writing. What I would want is some kind of sample code, maybe a step-by-step description of how to add the components to my program..."
There's no way I could have said it better. The book seems to want to cover "everything" but actually manages to say "nothing". The only part in which I would have to disagree with the previous reviewer is his rating. He gave it three stars. I think it deserves one. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-08 16:50:27 EST)
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| 11-28-05 | 5 | 5\26 |
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This is an amazing piece of Literature.
I was fascinated with the complexities of it and was a little perplexed at first. However, I soon discovered that there were hidden codes within the book that would allow me to gain a much better understanding of something. I still have not discovered what that something is. Bascially, you can take a computer program (hopefully one written with help from this book), and do some simple analysis on non-random codes created from random samples of text created from sequential alpha-numeric capture. I guess its similar to the Bible Codes, only less idiotic or blasphemous. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-07 08:53:48 EST)
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| 11-12-05 | 5 | 0\12 |
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Very good book! Windows Programmer must have.
Easy to follow. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-06-30 08:56:54 EST)
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| 11-11-05 | 5 | 0\10 |
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Very good book! Windows Programmer must have.
Easy to follow. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-12-13 10:41:45 EST)
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| 11-10-05 | 5 | 6\7 |
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Being primarily an ASP.NET developer, I figured it wasn't too hard to develop a windows forms app, so I started. About 2 weeks into the project (which was going along fairly smoothly) I picked up this book.
I came to 2 conclusions after reading it: 1) I *couldn't* develop windows forms properly before (you tend to think differently when doing 100% web development) 2) now I CAN develop a windows forms app :) I thoroughly enjoyed the book. His expertise shows through all of the details. There is great detail about GDI, which is one of the biggest things that windows forms have over asp.net, so that was an area I spent a lot of time in. One of the things I REALLY respect about the book is the fact that he demonstrates the design-time "magic"... but he also gives solid examples of well-structured code -- not always using designer generated code. (This is something I frequently find in books that I cannot stand. Most people just show you the quick & dirty, without emphasis on proper code structure -- Chris Sells gets a thumbs up for not doing this) All in all the chapters were very informative, it was a good read, and I'd recommend it to anyone building windows forms in .NET 1.1. I can't wait for his 2.0 book! (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-08 16:50:27 EST)
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| 11-09-05 | 5 | 2\2 |
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First of all this book is extremely helpful in explaining the short path to mastering Windows Forms especially in the visual design mode.
The author successfully persuades the case that the design-time use of the Windows Forms library is preferred over working in an text editor. What really made this book indispensable to me was the section on Components. Taking ideas from a Software Architecture course along with what is explained about Components in this book led me to design a series of domain-specific components. I can now drop and interconnect these components into a form host thereby solving the problems of encapsulating non-presentation code away from the form host. Secondly these components, that contain some of the more challenging aspects of .NET, will allow me to delegate the form design work to less experienced workers. Without this book I would not have made the leap towards a better and much more productive form of system development. Finally the book is well-written by any standard. The writing falls within the top standard of any technical or computer book. The table of contents and index are very useful as well. Looking forward to the next edition. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-08 16:50:27 EST)
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| 11-03-05 | 5 | 3\4 |
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I run a very small software development business and transitions in development paradigms are a serious matter for us. I have been working with MFC for many years and I am just starting to re-implement some of our software stock. I decided to take the C# route rather than fudging the MFC version. I have purchased about $1500 of books for my library in the last year. Each transition, I find that there are lots of books that provide endless detail and very little by way of explanation, and if you are lucky there is one that stands out as providing the bridge. In moving to MFC, it was Mike Blaszczak's MFC VC++4 that provided nearly all the rational explanations. During this current move to C#, I have found that it's Chris Sells book that has fulfilled that role. Many thanks Chris.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-07 08:53:48 EST)
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| 10-10-05 | 5 | 5\6 |
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If you know very little about Windows Forms and GDI+, I recommend that you read "Programming Windows with C# by Charles Petzold" first before reading this one. There are a lot to learn from Chris Sells if you know what he is talking about.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-07-07 08:53:48 EST)
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| 07-04-05 | 5 | 2\2 |
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I bought this book with Erik Brown's Windows Programming Using C#, but I always read this book.
The writing style is concise and easy to read, and the sample code is just enough and get to the point. In a word, excellent! (Review Data Last Updated: 2005-08-21 03:25:53 EST)
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| 07-02-05 | 5 | 5\6 |
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As a computer scientist pursuing a Masters Degree, and teaching undergraduate courses, I am very picky about reading and learning material, even when choosing such material for my own education or enjoyment.
Also, while I appreciate new technology, I also fear aspects of it, such as "Form Designers" and "Drag and Drop" rapid prototyping of the GUI, without knowing the hidden code underneath it all. These are all wonderful tools, but my concern has been future generations of computer scientists with only 'dumbed down' knowledge of computer science and programming languages. This book solves all of this. It not only shows you aspects of the built-in rapid GUI construction capabilities of VS .NET, but it shows you how the code works, and how to code such things by hand. However, I WOULD NOT recommend this to someone who has had NO experience in C#. I would recommend getting Microsoft Visual C# .NET Step by Step guide first, and then perhaps get this book. This book makes some assumptions about your knowledge of terminology and C# itself. Nevertheless, this is an incredible addition to any C# developer's library. It is easy to read, enjoyable to learn with, and maintains overall excellent quality throughout. (Review Data Last Updated: 2005-08-21 03:25:53 EST)
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| 06-20-05 | 4 | 7\8 |
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What stands out for me after reading this book is the quality of the code examples (which you can download from the author's website). There are complete sample programs for every chapter. For example, there's a dialog program that shows you all the different types of common dialogs, examples of SDI / Multi SDI / MDI applications, and a controls program that demonstrates all of the different types of user controls. I think the author's intent with these examples (and the book in general) is to try to cover as much of WinForms features as possible, rather than focus on detailing every which way to use a TreeView control. For such details you need to go somewhere else, or look it up on MSDN.
I thought the second half of the book was better, with its coverage of more advanced topics such as integration of custom components within Visual Studio, multithreaded UIs, and application settings. Where I think the book falls short though is in the presentation, and its usefulness as a tutorial for beginners. First of all, it's important to note that the book does not teach you the basics of C# or .NET. So if you have never heard of WinForms before, you really should start off with an introductory Visual C# book before looking at this one. Problems with the presentation include the fact that the author does not really reference the code examples in the book itself. Typically, only partial code snippets are shown and there is this convention of using "..." in the code sections throughout the book which makes it difficult to follow - I found myself having to flip back and forth between pages to recall exactly what code the author has now considered "superfluous" (in his words). Basically, the content and coverage are there. But the book doesn't seem to be as polished as its MS Press counterparts. I would recommend waiting for a future edition that will likely use VS 2005 examples. (Review Data Last Updated: 2005-08-21 03:25:53 EST)
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| 05-28-05 | 5 | 3\5 |
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I found this book useful literally as soon as I opened it. While I've been programming for years, I'm fairly new to Windows, so most of this stuff is news to me. The book addresses a lot of the question marks left by the MS documentation. It comes at the material from a different perspective and takes a "lower-level" look at things, offering a explanation of "why," which augments the "how" that one can find in so many other places. I'd heartily recommend this book to anyone seeking a fundamental understanding of Windows Forms.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2005-08-21 03:25:53 EST)
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| 04-12-05 | 5 | 3\3 |
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This book is THE definitive guide to Forms and Controls programming. It is comprehensive, lucid and contains great examples. It doubles as a teaching book and later as a fantastic reference book. Few books can boast that. I had read the book before I took an advanced .NET training course by Wintellect (Wintellect and DevelopMentor are the premier companies in MS and .NET training). The instructor Jason Clark, (Chris' competitor in .NET training and a contractor for Microsoft) highly recommended this book during the training course and it was the only one he recommended for Forms and Controls programming while recommending at least three books on every other area of .NET programming. Jeff Prosise, also an instructor from Wintellect recommends the book as well. It's really hard to top accolades from one's competitors. I am a bit astonished by the occasional low star ratings. It makes me wonder if these people actually read or even have a copy of the book at all. This book should be included in the MSDN reference library, it's that good (though I don't think Addison Wesley would agree with that suggestion). It contains info that is not even in the MSDN docs.
The last book I remember written that brought you up to speed with such complete understanding of a Microsoft technology was Scott Wingo's and George Sheppard's book "MFC Internals". I need a second copy of this book so I don't have to carry it back and forth to work each day. It's getting a little frazzled. Wish they offered it in hardback. This is the first book I have read that could come with a money back guarantee, and the publisher would not lose a cent. Don't waste your money, BUY THIS BOOK. Note: This book is best for C# programming. If you are a VB programmer you will probably find Chris' other book "Windows Form Programming in Visual Basic" even better since it will have the examples in VB. You can bet the content there is as good as this book. (Review Data Last Updated: 2005-08-21 03:25:53 EST)
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| 04-10-05 | 3 | 4\6 |
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This book is a good introduction of Windows Forms programming. Author shows his style and history are definitely from the VB world. So if you are a VB programmer, this is probably at your level. Covers Forms well and the standard controls. Was sorely lacking details about more interesting controls such as DateTimePicker and TreeView.
But if you are looking to do custom controls and apply object oriented techniques, you will find it wanting. Relies very much on Visual development and its "magic". Sure wish he would have covered the trapping of dialog keyboard events. His no-touch-deployment and security chapters makes the book worth buying. Also did a good job with Resources. Would recommend Petzold and this book to complement each other. Bottom line, its worth the buy. (Review Data Last Updated: 2005-08-13 03:24:39 EST)
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| 01-12-05 | 5 | 4\7 |
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I'm developer form years. I'm just starting C# programming and I've bought many books about C# and .NET. One of them are too easy (and not enough detailed for me), rest assumed that people know .NET.
This book is different. It is really good developers guide as well as novice or advanced developer. Describes everything in detail, including many pictures. I like code presentation style - it is not many pages code listed in book - it shows only most important part of code. Information presented in book is very realistic - I'm sure every developer can find there answers in most cases. I must also say about text style of book - it's written like a good story - so reading it is big pleasure! If you are interested in Windows Form Programming in C#, using VS .NET - do not thing too long - just buy this book - you will not regret this! Good work Chris! (Review Data Last Updated: 2005-06-17 17:04:38 EST)
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