We received quite a bit of feedback from the MIX’09 conference on why Microsoft was pushing WPF aside and focusing their efforts on Silverlight. This is certainly not the case and the WPF story is stronger than ever. This is evident in the Visual Studio teams strategy (and several product teams across Microsoft) to bet on WPF for their front-end technology for Visual Studio 2010. MIX’09 is a conference focused on Web design and development and WPF is specific to building client-based applications.

For the vast majority of enterprise developers, their day to day efforts are spent applying their skills in building and maintaining line-of-business applications. Prior to WPF, these types of client-side applications have been built using technologies such as WinForms. WPF is focused on bringing the client-side technologies forward and providing the necessary tools and technologies to offer our users a better user experience and building the next-generation types of applications. However, there is a significant (but short-lived) learning curve in bringing your .NET skills to targeting WPF applications.

Thankfully, Karl Shifflet and Jaime Rodriquez are hitting the road across 4 cities across the U.S. as well as London to provide a *free* 2-day training class focused on building line-of-business applications with WPF. Karl Shifflett is a former Microsoft MVP and current Program Manager for Cider (Cider is the code name for the WPF designer in Visual Studio). Jaime Rodriquez is a Microsoft Technical Evangelist focusing on WPF and Silverlight. You can’t find any better instructors than the ones who are actually building the technology! If you’re interested in learning more about WPF and how it can help you bring more engaging user experiences to your users, I highly suggest attending this event.

Date, Location, and Logistics

Los Angeles, CA, 4/24 -4/25

London, UK, 5/15 -5/16

New York, NY, 5/29-5/30

Chicago, IL, 6/12-6/13

Phoenix, AZ, 6/5-6/6

Agenda

Day One:

• Lap Around WPF
• WPF Tools ( Blend, Visual Studio 2008)
• Graphics Subsystem
• Layout
• WPF Fundamentals and new concepts (Application Model, Dependency Properties, Trees (logical & visual),  Events, Threading)
• Resources
• Controls
• Styling
• Templating
• Q&A with instructors at end of day

Day Two:

• WPF integration with Win32 and Windows Forms
• Data binding
• Introduction to Model-View-ViewModel
• Commanding in M-V-VM
• Views, Navigation and Transitions
• Data Validation
• Error handling, Model dialogs, Logging
• Unit Testing
• MVVM & LOB tips and tricks
• Q&A with the instructor