windows presentation foundation future

Is WPF Dead? The Data Says Anything But, here’s why

TLDR: We review the status of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) in 2024 and beyond, whether it’s usage is increasing or declining and if this is a good platform to develop on for the long term. We talk about why WPF is still popular for performance or critical apps, particularly in the scientific, engineering or medical fields, and what alternatives there are for enterprise software development. Plus, our views on the ever changing landscape for desktop or cross-platform application development both now and in the future.

What is WPF?

WPF or Windows Presentation Foundation is a graphical framework by Microsoft for building rich interactive and visually appealing desktop applications. WPF has been around since 2006 where it was first introduced as codename ‘Avalon’ in Microsoft .NET Framework v3.0. Since then, WPF has undergone many evolutions and is actively maintained by Microsoft almost 20 years later! Supporting desktop application development on Windows, WPF is dependent on Microsoft .NET and applications can be built in C# or Visual Basic .NET.

WPF features a declarative markup language known as XAML, allowing clean separation of View (user-interface) and Model (data). It has many benefits such as rich vector graphics, resolution independence, DirectX hardware acceleration, a powerful data-binding engine and the ability to create entirely custom user interfaces or controls via Templates and Styles.

Below we will expand on the reasons why WPF continues to be popular, and what the future holds for this platform.

What are the Alternatives to WPF?

Past & Present alternatives to WPF on the XAML / C# stack in chronological order include:

• Avalonia (2011 – present), an open source platform XAML / C# framework
• Xamarin (2011 – 2024), a Cross-platform XAML / C# application framework for building mobile apps and desktop apps, which will be deprecated this year
• WinRT (2012 – 2015), a Microsoft Windows 8 based replacement for WPF which was ultimately deprecated.
• UWP (2015 – present), a Microsoft Windows 10 based replacement for WPF which is still active, but somewhat superseded by WinUI
• WinUI (2018 – present), a Microsoft Windows 10 based successor to WPF
• MAUI (2022 – present), a Microsoft cross-platform XAML / C# application framework which replaces Xamarin and with a focus on mobile apps
• Avalonia XPF (iii) (2023 – present), a 100% feature compatible replacement for WPF by the Avalonia team which allows WPF applications to run on Linux and macOS without code changes.

In addition, there are other cross-platform or desktop frameworks that are not based on C#. These include:

• Flutter: A cross-platform Dart framework for building mobile apps
• Qt: C++ based user interface framework for cross-platform applications
• JavaScript / React: Various flavours of JavaScript (or TypeScript) plus React or React Native allow creating cross platform applications

Is Javascript / React a Viable Alternative to WPF?

This article is primarily focussed on Microsoft or Xaml / C# frameworks, however, let’s cover quickly the topic of whether JavaScript / React is a viable alternative to WPF.

There are many applications which were developed on WPF which could be ported to JavaScript. However, there is still a large subset of applications for which WPF is a great choice vs. JavaScript or browser technologies. Those include, applications which require: 

• Native performance
• 64-bit memory addressing on the client
• Multi-threading and making use of all cores on the client

In addition, there are other advantages of developing for WPF, which are listed below.

What are the Advantages of WPF?

As a C# based user-interface framework with a long track record of stability and performance, WPF has many advantages.

Rapid Application Development

One of the reasons WPF continues to be popular, especially in enterprise and industries is the fact you can click File -> New Project in Visual Studio, write an app, compile it, and deploy it by copying to a shared drive or distribute via clickonce installer. It’s fast & easy.

Compared to the tech-stack of JavaScript apps where you will need to learn React, Redux, Typescript, HTMl, CSS, Node, Npm, REST, Websockets, a server platform, database platform, plus deploy your application to an environment before it’s available to others, it’s clear to see why rapid prototyping or building of internal tools tends to favour simpler alternatives such as WPF.

Mature Toolchain

Tools such as Visual Studio provide a visual designer, hot-reload, visual as well as code debugging.

Extensions like Resharper, NUnit or MSTest allow creating testable applications, supporting Test-Driven-Development (TDD).

Finally, third party tools and a rich ecosystem of third party free or paid components & libraries such as charts, graphs, datagrids on NuGet enhance the development experience further.

C# is a Great Programming Language

With it’s dependence on C# .NET it is possible to create powerful multi-threaded thick-client or thin-client applications in WPF, with best practices in software (such as dependency injection, model-view-view-model or MVVM patterns).

With 64-bit memory addressing in C#, near optimal performance and multi-threading you can build complex and high performing applications in WPF.

Build Complex & High Performance Desktop Apps

WPF continues to benefit from advancements in the evolution of .NET – allowing client / server applications with Azure Functions (Microsoft’s equivalent to AWS) to be written in the same language. Performance techniques like SIMD and vectorisation are now available in C#. Multi-threading and async/await as we mentioned before, plus C++ interop if you need to integrate to legacy code or high performance code.

Many users in the scientific, engineering, medical, automotive, motorsports or aerospace industries cannot sacrifice performance, and WPF gives you just that – full access to low level routines which will utilise the most from your CPU / GPU and disk.

How Popular is WPF in 2024?

In 2024, WPF continues to be popular for enterprise software development, with some estimates saying there are a half a million to one million actively developed applications worldwide.

Despite rumours of WPF’s untimely demise, the data shows a different story.

Below are a few data-points talking about the current state of the platform which shed some light on it’s future.

WPF Activity on Github

WPF was partially open sourced by Microsoft in 2018 (ii) , and as of today it’s GitHub repository has 6,700 Github stars, 1,100 forks, 142 contributors and over 5,200 commits spanning a 5 year period.

There are active projects such as Avalonia XPF (iii) which are looking to make WPF into a cross-platform framework. More on this below.

Strong support from the community as well as Microsoft means it’s likely that WPF will be here for many years to come.

Google Trend Searches for WPF vs. WinUI, MAUI

Google Trends (i) is a great tool to estimate the relative popularity of something worldwide and see the search trends over time. On it’s own, in a 5-year time period, there is a slight decline in searches for WPF. However, when compared against search trends for competing platforms such as WinUI, MAUI (Microsoft), Avalonia and Windows Forms, WPF continues to be dominant and show relative strength.

Activity for Nuget Packages

Nuget is the package manager for C# libraries including WPF. You can estimate the popularity of WPF vs. other similar frameworks by looking at download trends of popular libraries.

WPF Toolkit: a collection of free open source controls on WPF such as a DataGrid, ColorPicker and Charts has almost 12 million downloads (iv) , and continues to uptrend.

Prism : a popular dependency injection framework has libraries for WPF, Windows (UWP), MAUI and Uno. You can see in the download trends (v) , Prism.WPF outstrips all the others by a large margin.

Oxyplot : an open source charting library has implementations for WPF, Windows Forms and Windows (UWP / WinUI). Also here WPF leads the crowd and has the largest number of downloads by all

SciChart:  provides a high performance WPF Chart Control which was first released in 2012. On NuGet the package has reached 700,000 downloads, and continues to uptrend strongly – quite a lot for a closed-source commercial library!

Popularity in Enterprise

In 2024, WPF continues to be popular for enterprise software development, with over some estimates showing a half a million to one million actively developed applications and two million developers worldwide.

While not much chatter or excitement for what is no longer a new technology, WPF still has a lot of demand in internal and business-critical applications.

Anecdotally, several recent posters on a reddit topic about the future of WPF (vii) commented very positive things about the framework:

Basically it is a lot more popular than it appears on the outside. WPF is kind of like Cobol. You won’t see many posts about it, but it’s used quite a lot in enterprise and financial institutions for internal applications and tools.

We use it a lot in the automation industry – and after years of using it I like it. We have to live with supporting old WinForms here. It is ok but I like WPF more. WPF is in between the old WinForms and currently still buggy MAUI for me (personally)…

WPF here too, we routinely evaluate alternatives but have never found something that is absolutely better in every way given our requirements.

I’ve been developing WPF desktop applications for the last ten years. I can say that WPF is more popular within “traditional” industries like the banking, medical and defence . So if you see yourself in one of those industries WPF (with MVVM) is a good choice.

Since 2020, I’ve worked on a massive WPF project. If you need to do native windows desktop development, WPF is the best choice in my opinion .

What’s the Future of WPF?

As well as alternative Xaml / C# frameworks, there are some exciting developments which may one day become the future of WPF. One of them is Avalonia’s XPF (iii) . Brought to you by the Avalonia team, this is a 100% compatible replacement for WPF’s low level code which runs entirely on Linux and macOS. Users have reported being able to re-target a WPF application using Avalonia XPF in minutes and compile / deploy to macOS & Linux.

Mobile (iOS / Android) and web browser support is on the roadmap from the XPF team, meaning one day we could see a truly cross-platform version of WPF.

Cross-platform may be low on many enterprise WPF developers wish-lists however being able to port applications to Linux just be retargetting / recompiling is a huge value-add for organisations that require the highest possible performance, or OEM deployments into embedded systems which require Linux. Plus, by replacing the legacy DirectX9 renderer with OpenGL / Vulkan, Avalonia XPF conveys several advantages and shows a positive evolution in WPF.

Below here’s a prototype showing SciChart WPF running on Linux under Avalonia XPF. Our team has been actively investigating this and cross-compiling our C++ engine to Linux, abstracting all DirectX calls to OpenGL. We hope to make an announcement soon that SciChart will be available on Linux & macOS under XPF, allowing to developers of embedded systems, OEM applications and performance-heavy scientific and medical applications to target this platform.

Is WPF Dead?

Far from being dead, we believe WPF will be here for years to come. Here are the key reasons why:

• WPF has stood the test of time and is still active in enterprise software development 18 years after first release
• It continues to be compatible with the latest versions of Windows and no sign this will change.
• WPF is now open source, and has an active Github repository with hundreds of contributors, thousands of stars
• Google Trends and NuGet data show WPF packages continues to outpace alternatives in the C# / XAML space such as MAUI / WinUI
• Exciting projects such as Avalonia XPF extend the lifespan of existing WPF apps, allowing them to target multi platforms such as macOS and Linux and in future, iOS / Android / Browser

Finally, Our Roadmap

We are making steps now to make the SciChart library platform agnostic and as a first step, will be releasing a version of SciChart to support Avalonia XPF soon.

This will be a drop-in replacement, allowing applications which used SciChart WPF to ‘Just Work’ on Linux or macOS without code changes. We’re excited about this step in our evolution as a large proportion of our customers build for embedded devices, OEM systems or require the highest possible performance – which Linux helps to provide.

From a commercial point of view we are personally yet to see the demand for platforms such as WinUI or MAUI to match or replace WPF, however we are monitoring the situation closely. We are considering ways to make our technology available to more C# / XAML frameworks.

As a whole, we continued to be excited about XAML / C# based frameworks. We see a bright future in scientific, engineering and financial software which require the highest possible performance and will be continuing to invest in them.

Contact us share your opinion We’d love to hear from you on this topic. If you are a working for a commercial entity which would like to see SciChart on any of the alternative frameworks listed above, get in touch as we’d love to hear your opinion! CONTACT US

References in this article

• Google Trends WPF vs. MAUI vs. WinUI vs. UWP 🔗
• WPF Github Repository 🔗
• Avalonia XPF 🔗
• Nuget Trends for WPF Toolkit 🔗
• NuGet Trends for Prism.WPF vs Uno vs MAUI vs Windows 🔗
• NuGet Trends for OxyPlot WPF vs. WinForms vs. Windows 🔗
• Reddit thread – how popular is WPF in Enterprise Software Development 🔗

One comment

Valuable article, Andrew. It accords very much with my own experience. WPF attracts little excitement because no-one (including Microsoft) is trying to sell it. But at the the top end, where you need intricate and precise user interfaces, there is nothing to beat it on a Windows platform.

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Microsoft is finally getting its native Windows UI platform act together with WinUI 3 and WPF

Microsoft says WinUI 3 and WPF are the native UI platforms to invest in going forward.

What you need to know

• Microsoft has announced that WinUI 3 is joining WPF as the two recommended native UI platforms for Windows.
• The company is accelerating its own use of WinUI 3 across apps in Windows, including File Explorer, Photos, Phone Link, and more.
• WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) is also being updated with Windows 11 theming and hypen-based ligatures support for .NET 9.

It's Microsoft Build day, which means it's time for Microsoft to talk all about how it's making Windows better for developers. Today, the company has announced that it's getting its act together around native UI frameworks in Windows. It's now recommending just two UI platforms, those being WinUI 3 and WPF.

Microsoft has slowly been adopting WinUI 3 in many of Windows' built-in apps over the last couple of years, and the company today has said that it's now accelerating this adoption across core apps such as File Explorer, Photos, Dev Home, PowerToys, and Phone Link, with more to come down the line.

Additionally, WPF is being updated with Windows 11 theming, which should make it easier for developers building apps with that UI platform to make their app look and feel native and at home on the latest versions of Windows 11. It also now suppers hyphen-based ligatures for Microsoft .NET 9, and the company says it will continune to invest in WPF going forward.

The Windows App SDK, along with WinUI 3 or WPF are now the preferred ways of building apps on Windows. Microsoft says WinUI 3 is best used when apps are graphical, media, and consumer focused, and WPF is best used when leveraging the larger ecosystem of third-party controls and libraries.

You can learn more about the Windows UI platform during the " Navigating Win32 app development with WinUI and WPF " session.

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Windows presentation foundation (wpf).

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a UI framework for building Windows desktop applications.

WPF supports a broad set of application development features, including an application model, resources, controls, graphics, layout, data binding and documents. WPF uses the Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) to provide a declarative model for application programming.

WPF's rendering is vector-based, which enables applications to look great on high DPI monitors, as they can be infinitely scaled. WPF also includes a flexible hosting model, which makes it straightforward to host a video in a button, for example.

Visual Studio's designer, as well as Visual Studio Blend, make it easy to build WPF applications, with drag-and-drop and/or direct editing of XAML markup.

As of .NET 6.0, WPF supports ARM64.

See the WPF Roadmap to learn about project priorities, status and ship dates.

WinForms is another UI framework for building Windows desktop applications that is supported on .NET (7.0.x/6.0.x). WPF and WinForms applications only run on Windows. They are part of the Microsoft.NET.Sdk.WindowsDesktop SDK. You are recommended to use the most recent version of Visual Studio to develop WPF and WinForms applications for .NET.

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• We are currently developing WPF for .NET 8.

See the WPF roadmap to learn about the schedule for specific WPF components.

Test published at separate repo Tests and have limited coverage at this time. We will add more tests, however, it will be a progressive process.

The Visual Studio WPF designer is now available as part of Visual Studio 2019.

How to Engage, Contribute and Provide Feedback

Some of the best ways to contribute are to try things out, file bugs, join in design conversations, and fix issues.

• This repo defines contributing guidelines and also follows the more general .NET Core contributing guide .
• If you have a question or have found a bug, file an issue .
• Use daily builds if you want to contribute and stay up to date with the team.

.NET Framework issues

Issues with .NET Framework, including WPF, should be filed on VS developer community , or Product Support . They should not be filed on this repo.

Relationship to .NET Framework

This code base is a fork of the WPF code in the .NET Framework. .NET Core 3.0 was released with a goal of WPF having parity with the .NET Framework version. Over time, the two implementations may diverge.

The Update on .NET Core 3.0 and .NET Framework 4.8 provides a good description of the forward-looking differences between .NET Core and .NET Framework.

This update states how going forward .NET Core is the future of .NET. and .NET Framework 4.8 will be the last major version of .NET Framework.

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Also see info about related Microsoft .NET Core and ASP.NET Core Bug Bounty Program .

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Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to get modernized, soon match Windows 11 styles

The company has recently updated its roadmap page.

published on February 20, 2024

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• It’s been a hot while since Microsoft updated the look and feel WPF.
• A roadmap update says that Windows 11’s signature design elements are coming.
• Besides, nullability annotations will also be implemented.

It’s been a hot while since Microsoft updated the look and feel of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), its popular open-source app framework in Windows operating systems.

As per  their GitHub page  of what lies ahead in 2024 for .NET 9.0, the Redmond tech giant is revamping WPF styles to align with Windows 11, making your apps blend seamlessly into the latest OS. The last stable build of WPF rolled out back in November last year. 

Windows 11’s  signature design elements , such as rounded corners, updated color schemes, and enhanced snap layout functionality, will soon be supported. Additionally, nullability annotations will be implemented to improve code quality within the WPF codebase and applications developed using it.

In its own words, “Long-term vision for modernization of WPF contains investments like support for nullability annotations, trimming and NativeAOT support, DirectX upgrades and integration of newer .NET features and abstractions.”

Microsoft rolled out the first  .NET 9.0 preview build  not too long ago, promising easier access to OpenAI and other AI models.

Continuing on Microsoft’s all-out push for cloud adoption, Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code users will also benefit from new features introduced through the .NET Aspire initiative.

Of course, as expected, this update also includes essential performance and accessibility revampings. Developers will soon benefit from improved accessibility support for WPF controls, as well as benchmarking and optimization tools for enhancing the framework’s compatibility across various devices.

You can check out everything Microsoft has in mind for 2024 on the WPF Roadmap page on  GitHub .

Tech Reporter

Rafly is a reporter with years of journalistic experience, ranging from technology, business, social, and culture. Currently reporting news on Microsoft-related products, tech, and AI on Windows Report and MSPowerUser. Got a tip? Send it to [email protected] .

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'Is WPF Dead?' Some Devs Claim 'Yes' as Microsoft Relegates Issues/PRs to the Community

Update from Microsoft: "At this time, Microsoft does not have anything further to share and declines to comment."

• By David Ramel

In a recent livestreamed .NET Community Standup on YouTube, Microsoft put up a slide indicating Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a "community run project," prompting an audience question about whether the tech was dead (Microsoft said no) and a subsequent Twitter uproar among some developers who insist the opposite.

WPF is a .NET UI framework for creating Windows desktop applications, open sourced back in 2018 . Since then, many developers have complained that Microsoft seemed to be neglecting the project, with claims Microsoft was slow to respond to GitHub pull requests, if they were addressed at all.

A Dec. 15 tweet by Morten Nielsen (@dotMorten) said: "In the .NET community standup YouTube stream it was just confirmed that WPF maintenance has been outsourced to IDC [India Development Center] where projects historically has [sic] gone to die. So no one left in Redmond really working on it."

That tweet, hash-tagged with the longrunning #WPFIsDead, generated a lot of discussion back and forth on the claim.

In the online event itself, an audience member specifically asked if WPF was dead, and that question was answered by Olia Gavrysh, senior project manager on the Microsoft .NET team.

According to the automatically generated transcript, she replied: "Is WPF dead? Great question. No it's not dead. We have a team working on WPF and supporting it. We now switch to the model where we accept a lot of PRs from the community because we think of WPF as very mature project so not that much rapid development is happening in WPF area, but we totally support it. We bring it to every new .NET -- .NET 7, .NET 8. We have lots of existing users and we're going to support this product as long as we have users for that product, so it is not dead." Subsequent conversation seemed to indicate that WPF development has been switched to the IDC.

And here is what Fiza Azmi, a WPF product manager, said after putting up the slide pictured above (this reporter tried to correct obvious errors in the transcript throughout this article but couldn't understand some of the language):

First of all we'd like to begin with thanking all of you all who are present here and all the incredible contributors within the community who tirelessly contribute towards WPF. We want to start with this conversation with what we have been doing in WPF so what is new and here are the updates for on what you've done so far starting with the community run project. We started this initiative with the intent to enable developers in making a difference in how we are shaping WPF going forward and it makes us so happy to see how enthusiastically you have participated in all of these community run projects. We've received an inflow of PR's and issue requests out of which 24 were shortlisted ... and it's a great delight that ... 20 of them have been successfully completed. You can check them out on our GitHub page, the topic says WPF Community projects. We'll be sharing the link with you. Other than that there's been a blog post [" What's new for WPF in .NET 7 "] so for those of you who have missed it we have published the first ever blog post for WPF which talks about all the improvements that have gone so far in the .NET release. The main purpose of the post was yes to publish improvements but other than that also to recognize all the efforts that our contributors who have consistently thrived to make WPF a better platform for everyone have made in that in this journey with us so again thank you for that.

Soon after, another slide was put up with the item: "Community Run Project - Round 2." Talking over that side, Azmi said:

Now coming to what is next for us. We know with the success of the community run projects, the first round was quite a success and we are thrilled to announce that we will be holding and starting a second round of the same wherein issues and bugs will be chosen and run by the community. This is a really inspiring time for everyone and we couldn't be more thrilled with all of your environments so thank you so much for that.

A GitHub Community discussion titled " WPF Community goals for 23H1 (July 22 - Dec 22) " discusses WPF community projects as illustrated in the above screenshot. The link in the screenshot goes here .

Microsoft's handling of WPF during the switch from the old .NET Framework to the open source, cross-platform .NET Core (subsequently just .NET 6, 7 and so on) has been controversial, as discussed in the September 2020 Visual Studio Magazine article, " Microsoft Retools WPF Open Source Effort After Negative Feedback ."

That article reported that after a GitHub survey about its .NET open source efforts yielded negative feedback, Microsoft was retooling its efforts for the most problematic repo, WPF.

Microsoft published a new roadmap for WPF and is "working on staffing and tooling to be able to take PRs," said Sam Spencer, program manager for the .NET Core team, in a September 2020 blog post detailing the survey results.

"WPF was the main outlier for satisfaction," Spencer said. "Drilling into the comments, the main concern was that PRs and issues were not being addressed by the maintainers and there was a lack of clarity on if and when they would be. Internally the WPF team was not sufficiently staffed and did not have the test infrastructure in place to be able to respond to the community contributions."

More recently, on Nielsen's tweet thread, some developers claimed reports of the death of WPF were greatly exaggerated. Some comments -- all answered/rebutted by Nielsen -- include:

• I've worked in IDC. This stmnt is disparaging as much as it is inaccurate. U mention "outsourced" as if it has been handed out to a vendor. Some facts:IDC has MS's biggest R&D team outside of Redmond.Has full-fledged engnrng teams working on core stuff. Projects come here to die?
• In theory, the IDC (India Development Center) should have a product team that take care of it (Engineers and PM) and they should invest in maintenance and small new features. However, WPF is part of .NET so it will be support by Microsoft for a long time.
• 'Where projects historically has gone die' This is extremely inaccurate, I was there a few weeks ago and I can affirm that it's not true, many core and critical components of Windows, Office or Azure are fully managed by IDC and their teams, including many features you use daily.

Discussion about Nielsen's tweet was also lively on Reddit .

The whole brouhaha might be summed up with this comment on the Twitter thread: "Since 2008 I have bene hearing WPF is dead, Is this time for real?"

This reporter wonders the same thing. Nearly three hours prior to this writing, I submitted a media inquiry to Microsoft PR for a clarification on the issue. Any response from the company will be included here in an update.

Update: Four days after contacting Microsoft's "rapid response" PR firm, we received this message: "At this time, Microsoft does not have anything further to share and declines to comment."

About the Author

David Ramel is an editor and writer for Converge360.

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Windows Presentation Foundation applications will run perfectly on reduced memory, according to a new roadmap

The new enhancements will be released in the following weeks to months.

published on February 20, 2024

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A new roadmap detailing the future of the Windows Presentation Foundation platform was released to GitHub, detailing all the new features and capabilities coming to the open-source application framework.

Microsoft will not only release enhancements that will make the Windows Presentation Foundation applications run perfectly on reduced memory, but the Redmond-based tech giant will also update the platform to follow Windows 11’s design theme.

Bringing Windows 11 look and feel for majority of WPF controls. Support for Win11 features such as snap layout, rounded corners for controls and newer color schemes would bring enhanced experience for WPF applications. Microsoft

It’s been a while since WPF received any design updates, so the new Windows 11 theme should give it a modern look and bring it close to the overall look of the Visual Studio platform. Users should not worry, though, as the design will not impact the way Windows Presentation Foundation works, and the way applications on the platform are developed.

In fact, the roadmap reveals that they will be capable of running perfectly even on lower memory, as there will be enhancements to improve their performance.

Enhancing the performance of WPF apps both in terms of reduced memory usage, improved startup times and better rendering will ensure that WPF customers continue to derive great value. Accessibility is a key aspect of our work, and we aim to provide better support for our users with different abilities. Microsoft

Many other improvements are coming to the platform, including nullability annotations that will increase the quality of code, and time spent on debugging it.

This should not come as a surprise, as recently, Microsoft recently announced .NET9 will be coming this year too, so developers will have new tools and new ways to develop apps, including new AI tools to help them streamline their work.

While Windows Presentation Foundation is not getting any AI features (for now) the new design should make developers excited.

You can check the entire roadmap here .

More about the topics: microsoft , visual studio

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Is WPF Dead? What Is The Best Alternative?

A UI framework is an important software tool for creating software programs. For years, people have been using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to create desktop client applications. Despite receiving multiple updates since its launch, based on our research, WPF seems to attract search engine queries if it still good for software development on Windows and even asking is WPF dead. Let’s find out – is WPF dead and what is the best alternative for WPF?

Table of Contents

Is WPF Dead?

As the great writer Mark Twain said in a letter to The New York Journal “ the report of my death was an exaggeration ” [1]. WPF is definitely not dead. The WPF project was open sourced by Microsoft and published on GitHub [2]. There is even a public roadmap for WPF with target dates for 2022. That said, WPF does represent a technology stack that in 2006 was very much cutting edge but in recent years Microsoft have very heavily pushed toward newer offerings which especially include Win UI 3 and .Net MAUI.

It seems that this diversification of offerings and the mid ’00s attempts to unify a UI framework for Microsoft’s beloved but ultimately unsuccessful foray into mobile phones managed to sow a little confusion about where things were ultimately going to end up. That said, even with WPF still being very much alive and kicking there are better alternatives, both for native Windows app development and cross-platform development which targets Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and Linux too.

WPF: What Is The Windows Presentation Foundation?

Windows Presentation Foundation or WPF is a UI framework that helps people build desktop applications for the Windows desktop. The WPF framework was initially launched in 2006 and has undergone multiple upgrades. The most recent version of WPF was released in February 2022.

The WPF framework supports a vast variety of application development features. It efficiently develops:

• Application model
• Application controls and resources
• Main layout

You can use WPF to improve the data binding and security of your software. WPF also supports multiple programming languages such as C#, C, C + +, DirectX, etc. The WPF software tool is used with the .NET framework to develop and run applications on Windows.

The primary reason for using WPF is that it simplifies software and its feature development on Windows.

Compatibility

WPF uses XAML to isolate and view source code from HTML. Its data binding feature allows software developers to not write glue code or manage data templates. So, if you are creating an application, you don’t have to code multiple times to generate the collection of basic app features and controls.

You can use WPF with any Windows. NET Framework and .NET Core 3+. However, WPF is only compatible with Windows Desktop. This means you cannot use it to create software for iOS, Android, and Linux systems.

Advantages of WPF

WPF has been the primary UI software developer tool due to its several advantages, which are:

• WPF comes with a mature ecosystem that is suitable for many articles and StackOverflow posts.
• It also has various excellent community libraries.
• By using the WPF software development tool, you can flexibly customize your app and its features just the way you want.

Disadvantages of WPF

As WPF has multiple advantages, it comes with some drawbacks as well. You need to work around these while using WPF.

• It is only applicable for creating Windows-related software and applications. To develop apps for Android and iOS, you must acquire a new UI framework.
• The XAML designer for creating the visual interface of XAML-based apps needs improvement.
• The WPF tool comes with steep learning curves and the inability to adapt quickly results in major pitfalls.

Is WPF still around?

WPF is alive since anyone can still download it and use it in app development for Windows. Yet, despite being operational, there are better UI framework tools than WPF that are providing software development services . Most of these new tools are compatible with Windows, Android, iOS, and other desktop systems.

What is the best alternative for WPF?

It’s the VCL.  VCL – an abbreviation of Visual Component Library – is a set of visual tools effective for the rapid development of Windows applications. It uses the easy to learn yet modern, powerful Delphi language for the program code and to drive the applications. The VCL is also available for C++ programmers and there is also a version for those people coding in Python . In this article we refer to Delphi’s use of the VCL but much of what we discuss applies also to C++ and, to a lesser degree, the Python version.

Using the VCL, you can create visual, non-visual, and utility classes for different apps, such as:

• Windows desktop applications
• Database applications
• Console applications

Delphi’s modern object Pascal foundation means the VCL uses, among others, a base class type TObject which provides default behavior and protocol for all classes and objects. The TObject class is responsible for introducing methods that are essential for implementing fundamental behaviors of an application. For example, construction, destruction, and message handling inside applications.

Using Delphi with the VCL offers better protection of Enterprise source code protection than WPF and Electron – a fact we explore in depth in another article . Note also that the VCL is very ‘close to the metal’, by this we mean it is interacting at the lowest possible level of abstraction from the operating system. The VCL targets Microsoft Windows and as a result of this focus offers an almost unparalleled level of speed, quality and reliability.

An application based on the VCL framework ‘talks’ directly to the Windows APIs and SDKs and doesn’t require you to download additional elements like the .NET frameworks. Delphi VCL apps also have an awe-inspiring backward compatibility and robustness where many application developers report decades of productive development and deployment experience in a wide variety of customer scenarios.

Assuming you’re not using any Windows version-specific features a Delphi VCL app will typically need zero changes to go from running on Windows 8.1 to Windows 11 – this is absolutely NOT true of almost any other application development technology including the majority of WPF-based apps.

Exciting Components of Delphi VCL

The major components of Delphi VCL are a subset of the component library which is Delphi’s way of offering ready-to-use encapsulated functionality in elements which can be dragged and dropped on an application’s forms in the RAD Studio IDE’s visual form designer. The little nuggets of ready-cooked code can also be instantiated/created in code too although it’s much easier to design screens visually.

The parameters and event-driven behavior can be set and controlled using the ‘object inspector’ which makes it as easy as a couple of clicks to set much of the required items. The raw speed of creating your application’s screens this way and reusing nicely encapsulated pre-written code is what helps RAD Studio justify the fact that “RAD” stands for Rapid Application Development. No need to create wireframes or mock-ups – the visual form designer is absolutely what you see is what you get.

Using the component library, you can use any form or data module feature and even manipulate them on design time. Delphi VCL also has an object inspector that is useful for assigning property values without coding.

Delphi VCL provides both visual and non-visual components, depending on the run time. Example visual components include TForm – an abstract of one of the application’s forms, and TTreeView – the type of control you’ve seen hundreds of times in the Windows Explorer, Microsoft apps and others.

Meanwhile, the non-visual components apply to a variety of tasks. You can use TDataSource components of a form to connect the dataset with the controls of an application. This feature is extremely helpful in connecting apps with the main database.

The VCL even uses icons to show non-visual components. Therefore, you can easily visually manipulate non-visual components’ properties and events. On Delphi VCL, using non-visual components is as easy as operating visual ones.

Uses of RAD Studio with Delphi VCL

You can use Delphi VCL to create and design different stages of app development. Delphi VCL provides you with:

• New and exciting VCL styles even for menu styling. You can use these styles to develop modern-looking apps for Windows.
• The new app tethering components allow you to extend Windows desktop applications with mobile companion apps.
• You can also add GPS, gyroscope, and accelerometer features to your Windows apps.
• FireDAC is a Universal Data Access library that is highly useful for app development on Windows. it directly connects you with enterprise databases and provides high-speed access without compromising the performance levels.
• Use the new Taskbar component to insert interactive taskbar previews during the app development process.
• Object inspector helps you edit published properties by displaying them on a form at design time.
• RAD Studio with Delphi also supports live bindings so that you can produce low-code or zero-code apps where you ‘wire’ the data sources to the visual screen elements and let the Delphi runtime do all the hard work for you without needing to write the reams of ‘CRUD’ create, read, update, delete code by hand.

How To Build Amazing Windows Apps With Delphi VCL?

Windows Presentation Foundation is alive, but we think you can do better. Comparing it with new and latest alternatives, it produces good results but with less efficiency. Therefore, you should use Delphi VCL to build applications. It uses modern and up to date features that simplify the development process and take it from app development to rapid application development. No additional runtimes or “DLL hell” versioning problems. A Delphi VCL app is a sound, robust choice and even sets you up with easily transferrable skills for you to use to create cross-platform apps using its companion UI framework – FireMonkey FMX so you can target not just Windows but also macOS, iOS, Android and Linux too, a future-proofing smart choice.

Want to try Delphi VCL for your next Windows application? Get a free 30-day license to try the RAD Studio and Delphi VCL to build modern Windows apps.

[1] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/the-reports-of-my-death-are-greatly-exaggerated#:~:text=The%20reports%20of%20my%20death%20are%20greatly%20exaggerated%20is%20a,rumors%20that%20he%20was%20dying.

[2] https://github.com/dotnet/wpf

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Exploring the Future Features of WPF in 2024

As we stand on the cusp of a new era in software development, the future of the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) holds exciting promises and innovations. WPF, a stalwart in creating rich desktop applications, is gearing up for a transformative journey in 2024. In this article, we delve into the anticipated features that will shape the landscape of WPF development, offering developers and businesses a glimpse into what lies ahead.

Enhanced Performance for Seamless Experiences

One of the primary expectations for WPF in 2024 is a significant boost in performance. With the ever-increasing demand for smoother and more responsive applications, developers are eagerly awaiting improvements in rendering speeds and overall efficiency. The future iteration of WPF is anticipated to introduce optimizations that minimize lag and enhance the user experience, making it a more compelling choice for high-performance applications.

Adaptive UI for Diverse Platforms

As the digital ecosystem continues to diversify, developers are increasingly tasked with creating applications that seamlessly adapt to various devices and platforms. WPF is expected to address this need by incorporating features that enable the creation of adaptive user interfaces. Imagine a single codebase that effortlessly adjusts its layout and design to suit both desktop and mobile environments. The future of WPF development may well bring us closer to this reality, streamlining the process of building cross-platform applications.

Incorporating AI for Intelligent User Experiences

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer confined to the realms of science fiction; it is a tangible force driving innovation in software development. WPF is poised to leverage the power of AI to enhance user experiences. From predictive analytics to intelligent recommendations, the integration of AI into WPF applications in 2024 could open up new possibilities for developers to create more personalized and intuitive interfaces.

Modernized Design Tools for Streamlined Workflows

In the fast-paced world of software development, efficiency is paramount. WPF in 2024 is expected to introduce modernized design tools that streamline the development workflow. From enhanced visual designers to improved debugging capabilities, these tools aim to empower developers to create sophisticated applications with greater ease. The goal is to reduce development time without compromising the quality of the end product, making WPF an even more attractive choice for developers.

Expanded Support for 3D Graphics and Animation

The demand for visually stunning and immersive applications is on the rise. In response, WPF is anticipated to expand its support for 3D graphics and animation in 2024. This could enable developers to create more engaging user interfaces, incorporating lifelike animations and three-dimensional elements. Such enhancements not only cater to the aesthetic preferences of users but also open up new avenues for applications in industries such as gaming, simulation, and virtual reality.

Security Reinforcements for Data Protection

In an era where data security is a top priority, WPF is likely to introduce features aimed at reinforcing the security of applications. From encrypted communication protocols to advanced authentication mechanisms, the future of WPF development may see a heightened focus on safeguarding user data. Developers can expect tools and libraries that make it easier to implement robust security measures, ensuring that WPF applications meet the highest standards of data protection.

Cross-Platform Compatibility with .NET MAUI Integration

With the advent of .NET MAUI (Multi-platform App UI), the .NET ecosystem is taking a significant step towards unified cross-platform development. In 2024, WPF is expected to integrate more seamlessly with .NET MAUI, allowing developers to leverage their existing skills to build applications that run on a variety of platforms. This integration could lead to a more cohesive development experience, enabling developers to target multiple platforms with a shared codebase.

Community Collaboration through Open-Source Initiatives

The strength of any development framework lies in its community support. WPF’s journey in 2024 is likely to involve increased collaboration through open-source initiatives. By fostering a vibrant community, WPF can benefit from diverse perspectives, rapid issue resolution, and the contribution of valuable extensions and plugins. This collaborative approach ensures that WPF remains a dynamic and evolving framework that caters to the ever-changing needs of developers.

As we peer into the future of WPF development in 2024, the landscape appears promising and innovative. Enhanced performance, adaptive UI, AI integration, modernized design tools, expanded 3D graphics support, fortified security measures, cross-platform compatibility, and community collaboration are key aspects shaping the evolution of WPF. Developers can look forward to a toolkit that not only meets contemporary demands but also anticipates future trends, ensuring that WPF remains a relevant and powerful choice for creating compelling desktop applications. The journey into 2024 is an exciting one for WPF enthusiasts, filled with the potential to redefine the way we approach and experience application development.

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InfoQ Homepage Presentations Windows Presentation Foundation: The Future of Windows

Windows Presentation Foundation: The Future of Windows

Windows Presentation Foundation is a fundamental shift from how interactive applications have previously worked in Windows. In this session, Ian Griffiths shows key features of WPF such as XAML, composition, layout, animation, and data binding. Moreover, we will examine the need for WPF, showing both how and why it differs so radically from the classic Win32 approach.

Ian is a C# MVP, freelance software developer and consultant. He specializes in digital imaging applications, mainly broadcast video and medical imaging systems. Ian is also an instructor and course author for Pluralsight, and co-author of two books: .NET Windows Forms in a Nutshell and Mastering Visual Studio .NET, both by O'Reilly.

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Is WPF Dead in 2021? What Are The Alternatives

It was in 2006 that Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) was released with .NET framework 3.0. Over the years it got improved and it is still now in the market in 2021. With more than a decade passed by, it now raises a question is WPF dead?

Contact us for WPF development

What is WPF?

WPF is a very rich UI framework which is used by developers to build Windows desktop applications. It comes with built-in support for graphics, resources, data binding and much other. It makes use of Extensible Markup Language to define views and it does it in a declarative way.

WPF is Open Source

Microsoft open-sourced WPF, WinForms and WinUI on the same day it planned to announce the Preview 1 of .NET Core 3.0. Open source is nothing but an arrangement where the community can contribute towards the technology in the form of bug fixes and features. Microsoft has proved to be on the side of open source with this approach and by open sourcing WPF it has indicated that it cares about its future. The existing WPF implementation to GitHub does not have any sources published from Microsoft but it has reacted to a repository there in which is named as WPF for .NET Core. This clearly means that the codebase in there, targets the .NET Core platform.

Microsoft Roadmap For 2021

The Microsoft has come up with a roadmap for WPF in 2021 and it is stating equality in terms of performance and function compared to . NET Framework and the goals for the same are set with the release of .NET Code 3.0. The roadmap has plans which focus on work to be done so as to ensure all the components are made available. For the same, they are working on to validate the pull requests from the community and merge it.

The Impact of .NET Core

The Microsoft new release of .NET Core 3.0 is focused on adding WPF support to the new generation of .NET. This update will offer you an opportunity where you can have your application with a specific version of the .NET framework instead of relying on the version which is present on the devices of your customers.

Now this is a big thing coming from Microsoft where it is making a move from WPF to .NET Core. This move clearly explains that Microsoft sees a future in WPF and considers it as a UI framework for the .NET platform. Microsoft has really invested a lot in WPF by making it open source and making it work on .NET Core.

One of the clear benefits of this move is that if you want to build a WPF application , you no longer have to stay within the .NET framework. This means like the choices backend developers had for frontend technologies since .NET core 1.0, now you have the same for WPF application development .

WPF applications run only on Windows as it makes use of a lot of Windows-specific features. This works the same for WPF applications that work on .NET core platform. As .NET core is better known for cross-platform framework , it is somewhat unintuitive. But if you look at the history of WPF, you will understand that things make sense here.

About The Existing Applications

When it comes to existing applications we have a doubt regarding whether we need to move it to the .NET core or not. It is not necessary rather a choice. As per the suggestion of Microsoft, new projects should be built on the newly formed .NET Core platform. Here the existing legacy apps which are not important for the business and are in the maintenance mode can be kept. The (full) .NET framework will still be made available to the developers to use.

Advantages of .NET Core For Desktop Development

Your applications will perform well as they run on the newest .NET technology which has been built from the scratch. The .NET Core does not possess some of the legacy things which could not be removed from the (full) .NET framework. This all makes it even more efficient.

By using different .NET Core versions, you can run your applications alongside one another. This way, your application becomes independent of the framework of .NET, which is either installed on your or your customer’s device.

The new features in the Visual Studio which were developed for the applications that are making use of the .NET Core platform, can be accessed this way for your SDKs, tools and new project file format.

Here you can build applications using less efforts and it will eventually save you a lot of time and money. When you are looking for continuous delivery and continuous integration, this especially works well.

Alternatives to WPF

There is a community which is creating alternatives for the .NET Core platforms. Some of the alternatives to WPF are:

• Platform Uno

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Introduction to WPF in Visual Studio

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Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) in Visual Studio provides developers with a unified programming model for building line-of-business desktop applications on Windows.

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What is the difference between Window Presentation Foundation and WCF? Which is newer?

So which one is the newer one, and why would I use one over the other. Or more importantly, over Windows Forms?

• 1 WPF and WCF are entirely different. WPF is for rich GUI application. WCF is for service oriented applications. WCF unifies Webserives+ remoting+ message queues+ into a single API. WPF is better choice over Windows forms, though you would have to invest time and efforts into it. WPF and WCF would solve different business problems. –  PRR Commented Nov 11, 2009 at 6:33
• 2 Which is newer: rocket ships or vanilla beans? Why should I use one or the other? –  Mike Hanson Commented Nov 11, 2009 at 8:55
• vanilla beans are newer Mike, everyone knows that! DOH –  Arcturus Commented Nov 11, 2009 at 9:36

3 Answers 3

Neither is newer than the other, they have both been cooking for roughly the same period of time.

HOWEVER they are totally different things :

WPF == Windows Presentation Foundation WCF == Windows Communication Foundation

WPF is the direct replacement for WinForms. WCF is a framework for talking to webservices, it replaces Remoting. I could waffle for hours on this, but that is a short answer for you :)

• 2 WPF is much, much more powerful than WinForms, and more efficient to work with too. Compare WinForms with raw GDI calls and WndProcs, and you will have some idea of the difference. Many things that are easy to do in WinForms are even easier in WPF, and many things that are nearly impossible in WinForms are easy in WPF. If you have a choice, WPF is almost always better than WinForms. The only exceptions are if you are running on embedded hardware with very limited performance, hardware over 10-12 years old, or must support Windows 2000 or Windows 9x. –  Ray Burns Commented Nov 11, 2009 at 4:35
• @slugster You cannot say it replaces Remoting . Remoting is still used for App domain communication. –  Searock Commented Jul 2, 2011 at 16:02

From Microsoft websites:

Windows Communication Foundation is...

a part of the .NET Framework that provides a unified programming model for rapidly building service-oriented applications that communicate across the web and the enterprise..

Windows Presentation Foundation

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) provides developers with a unified programming model for building rich Windows smart client user experiences that incorporate UI, media, and documents.

WPF is NOT a replacement for WinForms. Consider LOB applications, running on bulk enterprise hardware. The overhead of WPF is ridiculous.

Consider the following On my machine I have VS2008 and VS2010 installed.

Visual Studio 2008 (WinForms I believe) is only ~100mb of memory.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 (WPF) is ~300mb.

That's just stupid. There's no reason for VS to be using WPF. It doesn't need flashy graphics or anything special that WPF offers. I'm for one sticking to VS2008. There's a time and a place when WPF is great to use, but Visual Studio and as I said LOB applications are not the time or place, it's just adding ridiculous overhead for pointless reasons.

However, WPF is a lot easier to work with than WinForms (once you UNDERSTAND it, the learning curve is also a lot larger)

• Uh, you didn't think that through, yeah? WPF is the next generation on from WinForms, hence my comment about "replacement". As for why VS2010 is done in WPF.... i imagine it must be a whole bunch easier to do WPF rendering/layout etc when your IDE is written in WPF than it would be when the IDE is still predominantly C++ and COM based like VS2008. –  slugster Commented Nov 11, 2009 at 11:59
• ITS NOT A REPLACEMENT. Microsoft has no intentions of discontinuing WinForms –  y2k Commented Nov 11, 2009 at 20:01
• Duh, nobody ever said WinForms was going to be replaced, i don't know how you managed to read that into what i said. It most certainly is a replacement, in the same way that WinForms & .Net is a replacement for VB/MFC etc, you can still code in those older technologies if you wish, but fewer and fewer people are doing so. If you don't like the word "replacement" then think "next generation". –  slugster Commented Nov 12, 2009 at 0:08

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Is WPF Still Relevant in 2019?

by Claudio Bernasconi | Jan 30, 2019 | C# | 5 comments

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) has been released as part of the .NET framework 3.0 in 2006. It was one year before Apple released its iPhone. Many .NET Framework versions later, it got improved, and it’s still there. In 2019, WPF is in its 13th year which raises the question if WPF is still a good choice?

What is WPF?

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a UI framework for building Windows desktop applications. It uses the Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) to define views in a declarative way. It has built-in support for resources, graphics, data binding and much more. It’s a very feature rich UI framework.

WPF is open source

On December 4th, 2018 Scott Hanselman announced on his blog that WPF , WinForms, and WinUI are being open-sourced by Microsoft on the same day as .NET Core 3.0 Preview 1 was announced .

Open sourcing means that the community has the option to contribute features and bugfixes to the technology. Microsoft has proved that they care about open source and open sourcing WPF is a strong sign that Microsoft also cares about the future for WPF.

It is worth mentioning that Microsoft did not publish the sources of the existing WPF implementation to GitHub, but they reacted a repository called WPF for .NET Core , which indicates that it’s a specific code base targeting the .NET Core platform.

Microsoft Roadmap 2019

Microsoft’s official 2019 WPF roadmap  states that functional and performance parity compared to the .NET Framework are set goals in regards to the release of .NET Core 3.0.

The roadmap also states that there needs work to be done in order to have all components available and that they are working on the process of how to validate and merge community pull requests.

The impact of .NET core

With the upcoming release of .NET Core 3.0 Microsoft adds WPF support to the new generation of .NET . That also gives you the opportunity to ship a specific version of the .NET (Core) framework with your application instead of relying on a specific version installed on your customer’s machines.

It is a big statement from Microsoft to move WPF to .NET core. In my opinion, this move shows that Microsoft continues to believe in the future of WPF as a UI framework for the .NET platform. They invest a lot of money into open-sourcing it and making it run on .NET core.

One of the biggest benefits of this move is that you are no longer boxed into the (full) .NET framework if you want to build a WPF application. You now have the same choice for front-end products that backend developers already had since .NET core 1.0. You can now choose if you want to write your application for the new or the established platform. Having a choice is great.

Because WPF (and WinForms) use a lot of Windows-specific features, WPF applications will only run on Windows. It’s also true for WPF applications targeting the .NET core platform. That is somewhat unintuitive because .NET core is best known as a cross-platform framework, but makes sense if you think about the history of WPF.

What about existing applications?

Do we have to migrate existing applications to .NET Core? No, we don’t, but we can. Microsoft suggests that new projects should be considered building on the new .NET Core platform where existing legacy apps which are in maintenance mode and are not business critical can remain on .NET Framework. The (full) .NET framework will still be available for a long time.

Advantages of .NET Core for Desktop

1. Your application runs on the newest .NET technology which was written from scratch resulting in a much better performance. Some of the legacy stuff from the early days that could not be removed from the (full) .NET Framework were not transferred to the .NET Core platform. All of this makes it much more efficient.

2. You can run your applications side-by-side using different .NET Core versions. That allows your application to be independent of the .NET frameworks installed on your computer or your customer’s computer.

3. You gain access to the newest features in Visual Studio around the new project file format, tools and SDKs which were created for applications using the .NET Core platform.

4. Building your application becomes faster which results in less effort (time & money spent). That is especially helpful in regards to continuous integration and continuous delivery.

From the .NET blog: “Know that if you have existing .NET Framework apps that there is no pressure to port them to .NET Core. We will be adding features to .NET Framework 4.8 to support new desktop scenarios. While we do recommend that new desktop apps should consider targeting .NET Core, the .NET Framework will keep the high compatibility bar and will provide support for your apps for a very long time to come.”

Alternatives

Not in the scope of this article, but also worth mentioning is that there are community created alternatives for the .NET Core platform:

• Platform Uno  allows you to write C# and XAML code to build web and mobile applications targeting Android and iOS. It also provides a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) bridge.
• Avalonia  is a cross-platform XAML framework for .NET Framework, .NET Core and Mono. As it supports .NET Core and Mono it runs not only on Windows but also on Linux. It also features experimental mobile support for Android and iOS.

Of course, there are other projects including Blazor  and Ooui  which leverage your C# and .NET skills to build applications for the web.

In my opinion, WPF is still a valuable and relevant framework for building .NET applications in 2019 for both the .NET Framework and for .NET Core. If you have a team or company familiar with the tools why shouldn’t you use this advantage? Use something new, just because it’s shiny? Does not make any sense for me.

If I was in the situation where I have existing applications I would carefully evaluate for each application if migrating to .NET Core makes sense and how much effort it would take to do so. As explained in this article, there are many benefits of running on the .NET Core platform which you could leverage for your application.

One important aspect is that there is a big eco-system around WPF. There are UI frameworks like Telerik or DevExpress which enhance the functionality even further. There are also MVVM frameworks which help you decouple view logic and business logic.

And because WPF is around for a long time, it can be considered stable. There won’t be breaking changes in every further release, and there won’t be silly bugs in commonly used components.

It depends on the requirements of a new project if WPF is an option. When it comes to a Windows (only) Desktop client, WPF can still be a viable option.

The alternatives mentioned above give us many different options to choose from. There is still a very healthy eco-system around Windows Desktop application development, although web and mobile are going through the roof.

Further Resources

• WPF for .NET Core Repository
• WPF for .NET Core 2019 Roadmap

Claudio Bernasconi

2019 : The entire business world is moving it’s applications from WPF to Angular or similar. Sorry. It’s dead. MVC is about to die soon. SPAs eventually won.

Maybe MVC will be replaced by ASP. NET Core, but I think WPF will be a valid solution for desktop high performance enterprise applications for a long time.

@Panos.R I don’t think that’s true, or at least not as widespread as you make it out to be. If they are converting/rebuilding existing apps as an SPA , what exactly is the rationale? What would the advantage be , especially now that WPF has guaranteed future support (due to Netcore3) ?

Businesses generally convert only when: 1) There is some big improvement in performance that will help productivity 2) There will be more useful features that will help productivity, 3) There are worries about whether they’ll be able to continue to deploy and maintain an app. 4) Other apps that use the existing one as a template continue to be built and that would go much faster inside another platform. 5) There are complex controls they can easily find examples for in other environments that aren’t difficult to customize.

On none of the first three fronts does it make the least bit of sense to migrate existing WPF apps to some other platform. 1)If there are performance issues in LOB app– enough to matter–it is the architect’s fault, not WPF. Yes, there is a learning curve but there are also a LOT of ways to tune performance. 2) If one is malcontent about WPF’s features, one doesn’t understand WPF very thoroughly: it is designed to be a self-contained system for creating complex controls (that are usually combinations of more primitive controls), and every single aspect of each of the component’s behaviors can be tuned. This makes it a good deal more powerful than Winforms, and gives architects the same level of fine-tuned control just using XAML and the stock Framework components, without a million little dependencies on JavaScript frameworks, which tend to have a short shelf-life. 3) Netcore3’s support for WPF should dispel any concerns about deployment.

Only the last two items should even be a consideration–and they are only relevant to the building of NEW apps, not migrating existing ones.

Regarding #4, WPF has never been a RAD environment. The tooling is not as good or numerous as with HTML, and the binding approaches are a lot harder than with Winforms. Still, if a team learns to reuse their existing work, all this difference can be minimized, negated really. Actually, despite way XAML at times , one can add child controls to any panel object very easily just using C#. Why more don’t do that is quite beyond me. Perhaps it is because the MVVM principle is often stressed, and that allows keeping all the View-specific code entirely in XAML, which seems to be important to many from a S.O.C. standpoint.

Regarding #5, I’ll admit that here that WPF falls far behind behind in terms of usable examples, and in the sheer number of controls available in web platforms, but there are still plenty of third party controls–enough to get the job done at any rate. Also,I question how easy it is to customize the more complex controls in other platforms by comparison. If it’s easier, it’s usually just because more people are using it, so there are more code examples to draw one. More to the point though: there really isn’t much of need for 3rd party controls in WPF in the first place–it is designed to be self-contained and allow one to create any kind of control one desires. In a worst case scenario, developers have to resort to a third-party control for something more complex like a hierarchical-view datagrid just because it would take them to much time and energy to build one their self.

It bears mentioning that the alternatives worth considering are almost all server-side technologies, not client. We’re just now starting to see an option for building SPA’s using client-side C# instead of JavaScript really take root. Only recently has Blazor (which gives a client-side option for C# development) become a fully-supported Microsoft platform. And as far as I can tell, the client-side option in Blazor still requires a web server to deploy the clients. I don’t think it’s a true fat-client technology, in other words. More fundamentally: to do what WPF does natively would require a bunch of JavaScript frameworks likely to go obsolete soon and need updating. Plus, and I’m not sure how simple it would be when it comes to all of the in-memory and asynchronous stuff. If there IS going to be a replacement for WPF, my money is on Blazor client-side, but unless there is an easy way to do everything WPF can and deploy it to a client without a web server, I think it’s moot.

Finally, if the goal is to move to an HTML-based alternative, we have to take it on good faith that somehow this will result in LESS rework of existing apps going forward, not more. Frankly, I believe it’s absurd to think hat a move to any HTML5-based platform is going to require less rework . We’ve heard for years the desktop was dead and yet we’ve seen several versions of ASP come and go, and many more little JavaScript frameworks do the same. Meanwhile, WPF has been able to do all of the same kinds of things natively, without all of the external dependencies, in a highly object-oriented language, with full aforethought given to design patterns.

The irony is that when you read about Blazor, the press statements say things like “wouldn’t it be great to have C# client-side scripting inside a web app?” LOL. Well, yes, it certainly would be….almost like we had 15 years ago with Silverlight!

The real reasons you see a shift towards HTML platforms nowadays is because a) Google decided to stop supporting most RIA plugins to make their browser a bit faster b) HTML/JavaScript started being able to do some of the client-side stuff WPF could (although how adequately and relatively easily/cleanly is debatable) and c) there is a moronic obsession over everything being cross-platform compatible. I say it’s moronic because if deploying a Windows-based LOB app internally in your company were such an obstacle , you would probably never have been able to in the first place. For Christ’s , Citrix Xenapp, folks! Problem solved. This one area where there is a huge chasm between the needs of free-lancers and internal development shops in big corporations. For the former, there is a legitimate need for everything to work in every browser, on every OS. For the latter, there never was a need in the first place, and having to deal with all the numerous the DOM -related annoyances of the web stack. But for years and years–actually before WPF even came around–herd-thinking IT managers would insist the desktop was done for and insist on near everything being built as a web-app. That has never been the case , nor could it ever be the case, although clearly most apps can be deployed to the web, and the line between web app and thick client has once again gotten a bit blurry.

Finally, the most obvious reason why people keep spreading the idea that WPF is “dead” is because there simply isn’t much left to add to it at this point. It is fast, flexible and entirely self-contained in a way that other platforms simply aren’t. Age-wise, is “mature” in the same sense that Winforms is. So why would we expect more and more to keep getting added? Not that I wouldn’t like to see SOME more features and better tooling, but at the end of the day, I and others can get the job done just fine using Visual Studio. If ones wants more and more new features (as opposed to less rework and more shelf-life), then one should be looking at the latest HTML flavor-of-the-month. Frankly, talking about lack of features with WPF is just silly. All the gripes I hear about features come from people who are misinformed about its current capabilities, or else are focused on nitpicky things that wouldn’t be impediments to anyone building an internal LOB business app (which is most developers). What are really worried about is that someday, if WPF popularity declines enough, Microsoft will one day just yank the plug like they did with VB6.

There is simply no reason to suppose that will happen. As the author points out, WPF support isn’t going any where. WPF itself isn’t going to evolve much going forward though. There’s not sufficient demand nor much of a reason for it to. If you want to play with new toys and feel part of the in-crowd , go grab the Blazor, Spark, or some other SPA platform. In a few years, one of those might be able to do what we’ve been able to do in WPF all along.

very good. i use WPF with roslyn and compiler in runtime and store code xaml and c# Into sql server

It’s going to be ending of mine day, however before end I am reading this fantastic post to improve my know-how.

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Microsoft has shared a new roadmap that confirms its plans to modernize the apps using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) . This move could bring more apps in line with Windows 11’s design guidelines. For those unaware, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a subset of the .NET framework.

Developers use WPF to create the UI of apps that can run on Windows. WPF is exclusive to Windows. At the moment, apps like Phone Link, Visual Studio Community, Spotify, and Eartrumpet use WPF. Microsoft has some plans in mind to update the UI features of the WPF framework.

But why? Because WPF’s style hasn’t evolved much. The proposed modernization will aid developers in creating consistent Windows experiences that complement Windows 11’s UI. As first spotted by Windows Latest, here are a few goals of the project:

Windows 11 theming

Upgrading WPF will make sure that the apps that run on Windows 11 can use the operating system’s theming features.

For example, apps can access the newer Windows colour schemes. This could mean using accent colors when selecting buttons, texts, and other elements. Similarly, apps will be able to use rounded corners for more elements, such as buttons or controls.

In one of the Github posts, Microsoft noted that Windows 11 modernization for WPF could mean access to new color brushes, gradients, accent color and variations.

Apps can also use features such as Snap Layouts .

“Support for Win11 features such as snap layout, rounded corners for controls and newer color schemes would bring enhanced experience for WPF applications,” Microsoft noted in the support document first spotted by Windows Latest.

It will improve the overall appearance of the apps built on WPF. So, apps will not look out of place and complement the UI scheme of Windows 11.

Accessibility and performance improvements for Windows 11 apps

Improving WPF controls will help to develop apps that can be used by everyone (users with any kind of impairment). Building accessibility-focused apps that do not pose a challenge to use is this program’s top priority.

Microsoft also wants to improve the overall performance of apps built using WPF. It will benchmark how apps run on different devices and iron out the kinks in WPF.

Microsoft plans to make these apps run faster on Windows 11, use less memory, and launch faster with better rendering.

Fixing issues

The Redmond giant wants to do something about the major bugs and PRs within WPF. It will prioritize the major issues and also take the help of the community.

Slowly, the huge pileup of unaddressed bugs will reduce. So, developers won’t have to pause developments or ship apps with broken features.

WPF is far from perfect on Windows 11, but Microsoft doesn’t want it to remain the same. During Build 2024 developer conference, Microsoft touted WPF and WinAppSDK as the future of Windows apps. These new plans will improve the overall framework while identifying and fixing any issues that pop up in the future.

On the official roadmap page , Microsoft clarified its position on the missing support for emojis, hyphen ligatures, SVG support, and more. The company is cognizant of the inadequate feature set and plans to improve it.

However, fixing what’s broken seems to be the first course of action, and that leaves little room for these requests.

About The Author

Abhishek Mishra

Abhishek Mishra is a skilled news reporter working at Windows Latest, where he focuses on everything about computing and Windows. With a strong background in computer applications, thanks to his master's degree, Abhishek knows his way around complex tech subjects. His love for reading and his four years in journalism have sharpened his ability to explain tricky tech ideas in easy-to-understand ways. Over his career, he has crafted hundreds of detailed articles for publications like MakeUseof, Tom's Hardware, and more in the pursuit of helping tech enthusiasts.

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Windows Presentation Foundation

The Windows Presentation Foundation (or WPF), formerly code named Avalon, is the graphical subsystem feature of the .NET Framework 3.0 (formerly called WinFX) and is directly related to XAML. It is pre-installed in Vista, the latest version of the Microsoft Windows operating system. WPF is also available for installation on Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003. It provides a consistent programming model for building applications and provides a clear separation between the UI and the business logic. A WPF application can be deployed on the desktop or hosted in a web browser. It also enables richer control, design, and development of the visual aspects of Windows programs. It aims to unify a host of application services: user interface, 2D and 3D drawing, fixed and adaptive documents, vector graphics, raster graphics, animation, data binding, audio and video.

WPF/E is a subset of WPF, and stands for "Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere". It is basically a mobile version of WPF, based on XAML and Javascript. 3D features are not included, but XPS, vector-based drawing, and hardware acceleration, are. Wikipedia

This site was created in 2006. It was dedicated to everything Windows Presentation Foundation. Andrew Whiddettt (CTO), Victor Gaudioso and John Woo are WPF Engineers who helped guide those so inclined to learn WPF via articles, blogs, downloads and tutorials. Each of these engineers had their own blog.

An Update: I wonder how these three engineers would have reacted to the news that Zendesk was going to kill its Windows Phone app in 2017. I work for a company that offers customized help desk support to Zendesk clients. Our phones were ringing like crazy when this announcement was first made. Zendesk is a global provider of customer service software. They operate in 150 markets. In 2012 the company launched its Windows Phone app in the Market. However in November 2016 Zendesk announced that it was going to end support for its Windows Phone app and the app would only receive any emergency maintenance updates after Dec 31st 2016. Arggg!!! went our clients. In 2017 we had to explain to clients that due to the low usage of its Windows Phone app, Zendesk was just going to kill it. The app was removed from the Windows Store completely in April 2017 and was no longer be available for download for Windows Phone users. It was understandable if Zendesk didn't have enough users to justify making the proper updates and support. We told customers that Zendesk recommended they switch to an iOS or Android OS platform to keep enjoying the features of its Zendesk App. We also offered other work-a-rounds, but some clients were initially very unhappy. I was burned out by the end of that week. My one consolation was that the company just happened to be upgrading our offices and the reception area that same week with Italian modern furniture that was really sleek and cool. The furniture company, room service 360°, they ordered from is located in Philadelphia. I've driven by it many times but never associated it with business furniture. Turns out room service 360° offers stunning modern furniture from many Italian brands among others, for both the home and office. The makeover of the company was impressive and had a very positive impact on the employees moral. And the feedback from both our old and new customers was irrefutable: They loved the new look. Thank you management.

Now it's time to hit the road and drive home. I always like getting home. My affectionate Alaskan Malamute, Nanette, greets me at the door, ready to have some fun. We have a routine that includes a three-mile run and playing frisbee, a game she loves. Nanette is surprisingly agile for such a large dog, and catching that frisbee is her favorite part. It's a good thing I have several acres of land for her to use up all her energy before we go in for the night. Speaking of hobbies and outdoor activities, I recently got into golf, inspired by the themes of this year's Forum, which emphasized wellness and personal growth. Just last week, I picked up a Tour Edge golf club, a brand recommended by a friend. This club has been a fantastic addition to my leisure time, providing a great way to relax and improve my game. I'm planning to spend more time at the local golf course, honing my skills and enjoying the open spaces, much like Nanette enjoys her time outdoors. This evening, after our run and frisbee game, I might even practice a few swings in the backyard. It's going to be a good evening, indeed. Oh yes.

The selected content below taken from Victor Gaudioso’s blog posts.

June 1, 2011

The LASLUG Raffle Chooser App has been Published in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace

Victor @ 1:57 pm

If you attended our May 25, 2011 Los Angeles Silverlight Usergroup (LASLUG) meeting then you saw Kim S (LASLUG Special Event Coordinator) use the custom built Raffle Chooser Windows Phone 7 Application to choose the Winning Raffle Tickets.

Well, I figured that this could be a handy tool for our other .NET Usergroups such as LA C# Usergroup or even our friends at SoCal Code Camp ran by Woody

Pewitt (@woodyp on Twitter) as I think they all hold raffles as well. So I published it on the Zune Marketplace.  It is under the Social Category and is FREE!

You can Install the Raffle Chooser app directly from here: http://tinyurl.com/4xhcltr

If  you would like the source code feel free to email me at victorg at laslug dot com.

Thanks!  Victor

April 29, 2011

The Los Angeles Silverlight Usergroup (LASLUG) is Growing by Leaps & Bounds – State of the Usergroup

— Victor @ 12:07 am

Hello LASLUGers!

Today we had an occurrence that sets us apart as a premier .NET Usergroup;  today we hit the BIG TIME: Telerik has signed on to become a proud sponsor  of the Los Angeles Silverlight Usergroup.  In their own words, Telerik’s Emily Parker writes “ (we) provide 1 Telerik Ultimate Collection valued at $1999/month. This license is our largest bundle so it includes tons of software – check them out here: www.telerik.com/purchase.  I know you said other’s do two licenses/month but this license is a  huge bundle which always goes over well.  We send a demo CD with the license codes on them so your winners can just walk away with this and they are all set! “  

 Are they awesome or what? 

 Mission Statement:

To provide the local Los Aneles .NET community (with an emphasis on Silverlight & WPF) with the finest speakers that the planent has to offer.  Further, we pledge not to ever charge any of our members any money for this service.  While most other usergroups are free to attend they tend to charge for the raffles whereby they give away prizes.  We not only offer free gourmet pizza, beer, softdrinks and deserts we offer free prizes.  It is our goal to provide every member in attendence with a free prize be it a small prize such as a DevExpress tee-shirt, or a Microsoft Flash drive to something more significant such as an Apress book on how to do game programing for Windows Phone 7 to something very expensive such as Telerik’s Ultimate Silverlight Software Collection (a $1999.00 value).  Further, we promise to update our venues to make it easier for some members to attend one month and then easier for other members to attend another month.  We also feel this keep the group fresh and reduces the chance of them becoming bored with LASLUG meetings.  Finally, we have commited to our sponsors to help them add to their customer base by touting the positive aspects of their products and by encouraging our members to use their decision-making power at their places of employment to employ these books and tools if they enjoy the products we give to them as prizes. We also promise our sponsors high-visibility on our website (www.laslug.com) as well as in our meetings.

So Wed May 25th is the tentative date for our next  LASLUG  meeting and the first meeting we will be giving away  Software  from:

1.  Telerik  (one copy of Ultimate Collection – Value: $1999.00);

2.  DevExpress  (two copies of Silverlight Controls for Silverlight – Value: $799.99 (times two));

3.  Syncfusion  (two copies of Essential Studio Enterprise Edition – Value: $1,995.00 (times two));

4.  VIBlend  (VIBlend WPF Controls package – Value: $349.000), (VIBlend Silverlight Controls package – Value: $499.00).

We will also be giving away books:

1.  Apress  - Four titles to be determined – Approximate Value: $50.00 (times four));

2.  FreindsOfEd -  One title, two copies - Expression Blend 4 with Silverlight – Value: $49.00 (times two));

3.  Safari Books Online  (10 day free trial and 20% off with purchase of a year subscription).

We will also have swag from:

1. Mircosoft

2. DevExpress

3. Syncfusion

This comes out to a total of  $9,283 .  So by the time the meeting takes place I expect the prizes to be valued at  well over $10,000 .

And this is just as of right now…we are currently in talks with  O’reilly, Manning, Anheuser-Busch, New Belgium Brewers  and a few others.

So look for email blasts from me and the management team with regards to new sponsorship and meeting details.  Once you get the meeting announcement please secure your spot  ASAP  as space is limited and I think that will all of these new  prizes ,  swag ,  gourmet pizza  and  beer  the meeting is going to fill up  fast!  

October 2, 2010

An Amazing Review of my new Silverlight 4 Book

—  Victor @ 12:26 am

A reader named Peter Henry wrote an awesome review of my new Silverlight 4 book on his blog.  Its funny, the way he describes my writing style is EXACTLY what I was shooting for;  that is, as if I were right over your shoulder telling you step by step how to develop in Silverlight using Blend and Visual Studio.  Here is his review, you can also read it here: http://www.pchenry.com/Home/tabid/36/EntryID/343/Default.aspx

A few weeks ago, I saw a message on Twitter asking people to reply to get a free book.  Now, usually I disregard those emails/phone calls/unsolicited advancements with utter and complete contempt (too polite? LOL) but this time around I thought I might read this a bit further.  

The posting was from Simon Yu from apress.com, he was asking for reviewers for an upcoming Expression Blend book.  Interesting.  I was familiar with the previous book (Expression Blend 3) since Sylvain had bought one last year and I was kind of envious he was learning WPF and Expression Blend with this book.  Ya, it looked that impressive when I leafed through it.

But then……..life got busy, work got busy…..life just happened…..you probably know what I mean right?  Well, fast forward to Simon’s posting and I thought, eeehhhhh……what’s the worst that can happen?  Oh ya, he could be bogus and I get spammed forever?  AAAAAHHHHH let’s try it out, could be interesting?

As I would say to Bert lately, “long story short”, I got the book in the mail (thank you very much Simon!) and I have to tell ya, WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!  VERY COOL!  I guess in the last year, I’ve kind of gotten a bit gun-shy with the whole WPF/XAML/Blend thing.  Why?  Not quite sure why actually…..just that there’s A LOT to bite off to get something done.  Layout managers, data binding, POCOs or EF, WCF or web services, resources, triggers, behaviours, then there’s the whole XAML and Blend thing…..maybe you’re where I am?  You feeling a bit OVERWHELMED with all that?

Well, this is where this book comes into play.  I said to myself, with WP7 coming out, I’m getting on that band wagon and I’m going to do WPF this time!  Yes siree Bob!  Who’s Bob?  I don’t know, that’s the expression!  Anyways, here are my first impressions!

• Who’ the book aimed at?  People like me!  COOL!
• It’s NOT 800 pages!
• It reads less like MSDN and more like a book that keeps you excited!  Sorry MSDN, no slight against you, when I goto you, I want info HERE AND NOW, nothing pretty, nothing fancy, but when I’m reading about something brand new, I need a bit of spoon feeding and a bit of excitement to keep me interested.
• “LOTS of pretty pictures!”  Which is good for a visual designer tool that Blend is!  Ironic eh?  Lots of sites, even books don’t have pictures, WTF?  The HUGE benefit of pictures is I can see IMMEDIATELY when I’m begining to deviate away from the lesson and starting to get lost.  Not here!
• Juicy info is had right away, not half way through the book.  Ever read a Tom Clancy book?  Doesn’t matter which one, they ALL, only get interesting half way through.  Boooooooring!  Not with this book!
• Yes, I did get the book for free, but NO I’m not biased nor inclined to give this book a good rating just because of that.  I’m cheap, but I’m also not looking to make my living with book reviews.  I have ONE objective with this book, to learn Blend!
• And my last, first impression, which is the most important point in this post, Victor’s writing feels COMPLETELY interactive and dynamic.  Think about it, it’s a book written months ago, and it STILL feels like a conversation with him right there!  What do I mean?  He does this a lot and I love it…..he explains something, and I’m thinking…but, but but……then in the very next sentence he answers my very same question in my head.  Ya, and he does that continuously.  I’ve done good and bad training courses before, this guy writes this book like a beautiful training course.  I’m 50pgs into it and have HUGE expectations now for him to continue doing his “set’em up and knock’em down” style of teaching!

So, there you have it, my first impressions about this new book from Victor Gaudioso.  Keep your eyes peeled on this blog for a followup blog with my end of book review.  Now it’s time to grab a coffee and get coding (well, reading and coding that is LOL).

Thanks so much Peter!  Victor

May 26, 2010

New Speaking Event: Microsoft Book Signing/Silverlight 4 Presentation

— Victor @ 11:45 am

On Saturday June 19th, 2010 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm (PST) I will be signing copies of my latest book Foundation Blend 3 with Silverlight and presenting/demoing the new features of Silverlight 4 at the Microsoft Store in Mission Viejo, California!

Join me as I show how to use the new Webcam and COM APIs, show how to build Out-Of-Browser (OOB) Silverlight applications and talk about Sketchflow Prototyping with Silverlight.

There will be plenty of prizes and give-aways from our sponsors.  Microsoft will be giving away copies of the Expression Blend Suite, Apress will be giving away some of its most popular book titles based on .NET technologies and finally DevExpress will be giving away copies of its popular Silverlight Tools.

Join us for an evening of book signing, food and drinks, presentations and everything Silverlight!  attendance is free but RSVP as space is limited. 

See you there!

April 6, 2010

My Microsoft MVP Award!

— Victor @ 2:43 pm

My MVP Award just came in the mail and it did not disappoint.  There was a really nice plaque, a glass award, an MVP ID card and an MVP pin. Take a look at the video of me opening my award!

March 5, 2010

An Interesting Journey with a Man Named Ted

— Victor @ 8:24 am

As you probably know,  I am very serious and passionate about my love for Silverlight and Blend; I love the technology and possess a burning passion for teaching it.  If any of you know me you know full well that if you ask me for help I will do all I can to help you understand this medium and to be productive in it. 

As you also know I write books on Blend and Silverlight; I do so for a couple of reasons:

First, I do it to help those interested to learn this platform.  Silverlight and Blend are amazingly easy to use once you know how.  Sadly learning how can be difficult.  To facilitate the ease of learning this medium I decided to write books under the Apress/Friends of Ed flagship  Foundation  series.  I have two books already published and currentlyI am writing my third on SL 4/Blend. 

The second reason I write books is so that I have creditability as a bonafide  SL/Blend expert.  That being the case people will listen to my teachings and when I raise issues to my friends over at MSFT I get some very good responses. 

What I  DON”T  write these books for is money; it is all about the passion I possess.  To be honest, I don’t make a whole lot of money writing these books; if you were to break it down I probably end up making less than $5.00 per hour. 

So, whenever I receive a new review on Amazon I am quick to read it in hopes to understand how the public feels about my publication and how I can improve my next book.  As an example of this, I have my book’s Amazon link on my smart phone’s desktop. I click it at  least  once per day to look for new comments. 

The comments thus far have been quite positive (currently the book has 4 out of 5 stars).  So, whenever I get a negative comment my heart sinks and I am deeply saddend and concerned. 

As it happens just such a comment came down the pike a few days ago. In this review a man named Ted stated that there is entirely too much code in my book and being that it is a Blend book this should not be the case. 

While this review did hurt my feelings I had to admit the guy had a valid point.  But to be sure I grabbed a copy of my book and started to thumb through it and this validated what he had stated: there was in fact too much code for a Blend book.  So, I commented back and told Ted that his comment “ cut me to the core ” and that he did in fact have a valid point.  I apologized and promised that I would do better on my new book slated to come out this summer. 

Ted quickly responded and was a little apologetic that he had hurt my feelings but stuck by his point. He accepted my ap0logy and said that he looked forward to my next book.  But I didn’t feel that I had done enough for Ted.  Sure I had helped him understand that there are real people behind these books that have real feelings but what had I done to  help him?  This was a reader that put his faith in me to help them learn Silverlight and Blend and I had left him wandering aimlessly in the woods.  Not cool! What to do?

So, I decided that Ted would be one of those readers that is smart enough not to need to be guided through a narrative on how to learn Silverlight  and Blend.  After some thought it hit me that Ted is one of those that would benefit from a “ take one from column A and one from column B ” kind of learning regime. 

With that, I pointed Ted at my  personal blog where I have about 30-40 free Silverlight video tutorials.  They range from “ how to build a chrome button in Blend”  to “ how to de-serialize XML into native Silverlight objects .”

The danger of pointing a Silverlight newcomer to these videos is there is no structure, the reader is free to run wild and possibly tutorialize themselves into total confusion. 

Which, by the way I think my beginner books are great:  I take your hand at the very beginning and then walk you through, step by step how I think you should learn Silverlight and Blend and then when I think you are ready I let your hand go and tell you to now go forth and learn, you are ready.

So, this morning I received an email from a very excited and happy Ted telling me that my videos are what he has been looking for since he started this mission to learn Silverlight/Blend some 15 days ago.  Further, he was so satisfied he was compelled to post a comment entitied  “Must Watch – Must Read Resources for Blend!”  on the Microsoft Expression website, found  Below are a couple of excerpts from his post:

“…He explained things I had not seen in any help files or any other videos in 14 days of research.  You might be tempted to skip the first video about the UI, don’t do it!  One of the HUGE keys to understanding Blend is understanding the interface….”

“…Trust me, if you watch Victor’s videos, you will have about 50% fewer questions on how to do things in Blend.  If you work through the self paced tutorial, you will have another 50% reduction.  Just think, you will actually be able to do something in Blend, not wait for answers here, and when you DO have a question, it will probably be code related or something pretty esoteric that these experts can really sink their teeth into!…”

So now I have fulfilled my goal of helping one more person who wants to learn Silverlight and Blend.  And along the way, I discovered a way to make my new book better and even made a friend along the way.  Thanks Ted, my friend.

November 26, 2009

A Rough Draft of my New Silverlight 4 Book (due out in 2010)

— Victor @ 12:52 pm

Apress/Friends of Ed has engaged me to write a follow up to my last book Foundation Blend 3 with Silverlight . This new book will have all of the information from my last book as it is still relevant for Silverlight 4 but will also include the many wonderful new features of Silvelright 4.  I have created a rough draft for the Table of Contents for the new book and have decided to share it with you.  Please feel free to help me out and provide me with comments so that I can provide you with the best product to help those that are interested learn Silveright.

Table of Contents (working name: Foundation: Silverlight 4)

• Setting up the development environment (Blend 3  probably Blend 4 when released, Visual Studio 2010, Silverlight 4 Tools, Silverlight 4 Runtime)
• The Blend 3 (probably 4) Integrated Development Environment: The Toolbar, panels, artboard, workspace modes (Animation v Design)
• C#, XAML, and Object Oriented Programming
• Controls: Including the new Silverlight 4 Controls: ViewBox, RichTextArea ,  FlowDirection Property, the Improved DataGrid
• Timed Storyboards: Creating a Newton Cradle application
• Using the VSM and Blend 3’s State panel to create a Silverlight Media Player
• Behaviors: Included behaviors and custom behaviors: Using the FarseerPhysics engine to create a simple Silverlight 4 video game
• The Silverlight MediaElement: Create a video player application with Behaviors, XML serialization, and the new Silverlight 4 Drop property
• Using RIA services with the Silverlight 4 Network Authentication
• Events and EventHandlers including SL 4 right-click and MouseWheel event handling
• Classes and Interfaces
• ControlTemplates, Styles and Custom UserControls
• Writing a Custom Silverlight 4 Content Panel
• Writing a Silverlight 4 Out of the Browser application with Elevated Trust and the new Silverlight 4 COM API
• DataBinding: What is it? Improvements in Silverlight 4: DependencyObject Binding,  StringFormat ,  TargetNullValue, FallbackValue
• Silverlight 4 Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF)
• Building a Sketchflow Prototype
•  The Silverlight 4 Printing and Open Save APIs: Create an Image Printer application
• Creating a Photobooth application with the Silverlight 4 Microphone and Webcam API
• Miscellaneous Silverlight 4 Features:  The Clipboard API,  Command support for Buttons,  HTML support, the Notification API, TextTrimming, Full Keyboard access in Full Screen,  Offline DRM support, Data Validation, ,Fluid user interface support, Implicit theming for Controls, Google Chrome support

This is actually my first week of WPF and it has been a frustrating one as it is very difficult to install the WPF authoring environment. The reason for this is because MS has not released the final build for WPF as of yet. So, in order to install the authoring environment you have to install a few different things. They are:

  1. The .NET 3.0 Framework (if you have .NET 2.0 framework it might be best to uninstall it first.

  2. Visual Studio 2005 (Visual Studio Express is free and should work).

  3. Orcas.

  4. MS Interactive Designer (formally known as Sparkle)

  5. Visual Studio Extensions (so you can create a WPF project).

This should get you up and running. Soon, I will post a blog about creating a very simple WPF application. However, in the meantime I would suggest you get Jesse Libery's and Brian MacDonald's book on C#, called C# 2005 and Jessey Libery's book called, ironically enough C# and brush up on your C#. Good luck. Victor

Today I am posting my first WPF application. It is simple but I think it does show the power of the WPF 3D engine. If you have trouble seeing it you may have to download IE 7. Soon, I will post a tutorial on how I built it; you will be amazed on how simple the code for this was. Victor 

I have been in WPF bootcamp for the last three weeks and have learned quite a bit. Soon, I will post tutorials on how to style buttons as well as how to make a simple video player. Keep checking back. Victor 

We have written an exporter for 3DS Max so I have been learning the basics of that program. I made a simple model of a lightsaber with a simple rotation animation and exported it to XAML. Take a look:

Blend Beta 2 is out. I don't know if you have used this but this is awesome for the design side of WPF. I still use Visual Studio for the C#.