Windows Presentation Foundation 4: Brushes and Colors

Course details

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) in Visual Studio 2015 provides developers with a unified programming model for building modern user interfaces for Windows desktop applications. One of the most important aspects of any UI is color; learn how WPF tools like brushes and the visual Color Editor can help you create more appealing and engaging user experiences. Walt Ritscher introduces the solid, gradient, and tiled brushes; explains what properties are "brushable"; and shows how to specify color using RGB values, hexadecimal notation, and the sRGB color space. Plus, learn how to use opacity masks to adjust the transparency of different elements, and how to store brushes and colors in XAML resources so they are easily reusable and accessible from anywhere within Visual Studio.

Learning objectives
Working with brushes
Painting properties
Painting in code
Working with RGB channels
Using hexadecimal values
Setting opacity and transparency
Editing color in the Visual Studio Color Editor
Using gradient brushes
Decorating with tiled brushes
Adding brushes and colors to resources
Working with opacity masks

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Welcome
02 - What you should know before watching
03 - Disable the WPF debugging tool
04 - Use the exercise files

1. Brush and Color Overview

05 - Overview of the brushes
06 - Examples of the brushes
07 - Which properties are brushable
08 - Paint with a SolidColorBrush in code
09 - Paint with a SolidColorBrush in XAML
10 - The Brush type converter

2. Colors

11 - Color and colorspaces
12 - Work with RGB channels
13 - Use hexadecimal color values
14 - Opacity and transparency
15 - sRGB colorspace
16 - Use WPF preset colors

3. The Visual Studio Color Editor

17 - Basics
18 - Use the Eyedropper
19 - Use HSL and CMYK color values

4. The Gradient Brushes

20 - Why use gradients in the UI
21 - Banded colors with LinearGradientBrush
22 - Create a LinearGradientBrush with Property window
23 - Transform gradients
24 - Create rings with a RadialGradientBrush
25 - Build a sample UI with gradients

5. The Tiled Brushes

26 - Decorate elements using the ImageBrush
27 - Set tiled properties using the TileBrush
28 - Clone UI elements using the VisualBrush
29 - Paint with video using the VisualBrush

6. Brushes and Colors in Resources

30 - Add colors to XAML resources
31 - Add brushes to XAML resources
32 - Use system color resources

7. Opacity Mask

33 - Overview of an Opacity Mask
34 - Examples of opacity patterns

Conclusion

35 - Next steps