Synopses & Reviews
Get practical, hands-on instruction for learning the Composite UI Application Block (CAB) and the Smart Client Software Factory. Using just your fundamental Microsoft Visual Basic or Visual C# skills, you’ll work through seven lessons that present real-world scenarios. Each lesson is based on proven classroom guidance—building the skills your need to easily create user interface components for smart-client solutions.
Discover how to:
- Generate a shell application and implement prefabricated or custom CAB services
- Use work items and controllers to share resources in loosely coupled applications
- Optimize visual information display by using Workspaces and SmartParts
- Add and modify menus, toolbars, and status bars by using the CAB user interface extension
- Announce and receive asynchronous events within an application
- Invoke methods in the Action Catalog service to coordinate application business-logic
- Match CAB constructs to Windows Presentation Foundation
About the Author
David S. Platt runs Rolling Thunder Computing (http://www.rollthunder.com), an education and consulting practice. He is the author of six previous books, including Understanding COM+, published by Microsoft Press, and is a frequent contributor to MSDN, the Microsoft Developer Network. David lives in Ipswich, Massachusetts, with his wife, Linda, and his daughters.
Table of Contents
Introduction; Who This Book Is For; System Requirements; Sample Code; Acknowledgments; Support for This Book; Questions and Comments; Chapter 1: Introduction; 1.1 A. Problem Background; 1.2 B. Solution Architecture: Loose Coupling with CAB; 1.3 C. Smart Client Software Factory (SCSF); 1.4 D. Simplest Application Walkthrough, Classic CAB; 1.5 E. Tracing and Visualization; 1.6 Chapter 1 Lab Exercise Introduction; Chapter 2: The Shell and Services; 2.1 A. Concepts and Definitions; 2.2 B. Generating a CAB Project with SCSF; 2.3 C. The Shell Application and Initialization Process; 2.4 D. CAB Services; 2.5 Chapter 2 Lab Exercises The Shell and Services; Chapter 3: WorkItems and Controllers; 3.1 A. Problem Background; 3.2 B. Solution Architecture; 3.3 C. WorkItem Details; 3.4 D. Controllers; 3.5 Chapter 3 Lab Exercises WorkItems and Controllers; Chapter 4: Workspaces and SmartParts; 4.1 A. Problem Background; 4.2 B. Solution Architecture; 4.3 C. Workspaces; 4.4 D. SmartParts (Views); 4.5 E. Modifying the Display of Views using the SmartPartInfo Structure; 4.6 Chapter 4 Lab Exercises Workspaces and Smart Parts; Chapter 5: Shared User Interface Extension; 5.1 A. Problem Background; 5.2 B. Solution Architecture; 5.3 C. Shell Processing; 5.4 D. Menu Processing; 5.5 E. StatusStrips; 5.6 F. ToolStrips; 5.7 G. Non-ToolStripItem Classes: Writing a UIElementAdapter; 5.8 H. User Interface Modification Order; 5.9 Chapter 5 Lab Exercise User Interface Extension; Chapter 6: Event System; 6.1 A. Problem Background; 6.2 B. Solution Architecture; 6.3 C. Simplest example; 6.4 D. More Complex Examples: Connecting .NET Events to CAB Events, and Programmatic Subscriptions; 6.5 Chapter 6 Lab Exercises Event System; Chapter 7: Action Catalog Service; 7.1 A. Problem Background; 7.2 B. Solution Architecture: The Action Catalog Service; 7.3 C. Simplest Example: My Own Time Service; 7.4 D. More Complex Example: Passing and Modifying Parameters; 7.5 Chapter 7 Lab Exercise Action Catalog Service; Chapter 8: CAB and WPF; 8.1 A. Problem Background; 8.2 B. Official Solution Architecture: Interoperation; 8.3 C. Solution Architecture: Porting the CAB Libraries; 8.4 D. Further Solution Architecture: Porting the SCSF; 8.5 E. CAB Example Based on Boogaart's WPF CAB DLLs and My WPF SCSF; 8.6 F. More Complex Example: Browser-Hosted XBAP Application; 8.7 Chapter 8 Lab Exercises CAB and WPF; Generics; A. Problem Background; B. Solution Architecture; C. Simplest Example; D. More Complex Examples: Writing Our Own Generic Classes; E. An Interesting Use of Generics in the .NET Framework; Appendix A Lab Exercises Generics;