OK, so this is a small disclaimer. I don’t claim to be a user interface design expert and how an application looks is really a bit superfluous, isn’t it? Well, not really - some of the very best apps combine pristine simplicity with a killer presentation layer. You know the ones I’m talking about. In effect, they exude style that users appreciate every time they step into a well designed and uncluttered UI. I think it comes right down to applying the correct style and removing unnecessary visual and functional dissonance from the user’s experience. The folks at 37 Signals seem to have figured this out some time ago - they continue to release fresh products with a clear purpose that fills a straightforward (but extremely useful) software niche. Applications like Backpack are simple yet effective and they do what it says on the tin - just perform a few key tasks, forgo the temptation to bloat with a wish list of peripheral features, and execute well.
What about .NET developers, you ask - don’t they deserve to have similar control over the styling and profiling of their favorite applications? This is where styles and control templates in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) enter the fray. I’ve yet to meet a .NET programmer who doesn’t want a high degree of control over their application’s UI, but I know they exist because I’ve seen some woeful applications. WPF simply changes the way developers can access resources, create and apply styles, modify a control’s appearance, and build theme-specific styles and templates. The truth is that you just have to LEARN this stuff before you can start unlocking its real potential in your .NET applications. To that end, InnerWorkings released a sparkling new Drill on WPF Styles & Control Templates that I encourage you to check out.
This 3 hour Drill is pitched at a level 3 degree of difficulty, which is ideal for people with intermediate to advanced programming skills. We cover the following learning objectives (in our usual intensive, problem-solving manner) to get you quickly up to speed on WPF styles and templates:
- Accessing resources in WPF programmatically and declaratively.
- Creating styles as resources and applying them to user interface elements.
- Using a StyleSelector to alternate background colors based on custom logic.
- Using control templates to change the visual appearance of an existing control.
- Using template binding to respect the properties of the templated parent in a ControlTemplate.
- Working with themes to create theme-specific styles and templates for custom controls.
One last recommendation for you on this subject: we interweave our code samples with trusted reference material from Safari Books Online. For this Drill on WPF styles, we recommend Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed by Adam Nathan & Daniel Lehenbauer as background reading to complement our practice-based approach.
By the way, all InnerWorkings customers have style and charisma so don’t worry about it!
