Learning WPF… Full screen launcher app

Question

I'm in the process of building a Home Theatre PC (HTPC), and figured this could give me a small project to learn some more about WPF.

I want to build a simple program launcher. It would be an application that would fill the screen with a background of my choosing, and a few large icons/buttons to represent applications. I have an IR remote that will be set up to emulate keystrokes, so I can use the "keyboard" to move between the large buttons and "click" one of them, launching a program.

I'd like to define my button info, images, and background using some kind of external config file and image files in the same folder as the exe.

I've been playing around with the idea in VS2008 using VB but already I'm getting stuck with just trying to get an external image file to appear on a button. Many of the samples I find are relatively complicated and are written in C#, but I work in VB. If anyone has suggestions for getting over this hurdle or ideas on how I should approach other parts of my application, your input is welcome.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Try working your way through this series:

A First Introduction to WPF and XAML for Visual Basic Programmers

Answer 2

Good intro recommended in the first answer - if you want to go a bit deeper have a look at WPF - how and why