Windows Presentation Foundation

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is one of the three core development libraries of Microsoft's new Vista operating system. It is mainly responsible for graphic display, so it is called presentation ).
As a new graphics engine, WPF is based on DirectX. Of course, many new features are added. Its 2D and 3D engine's powerful look at the Vista interface to understand, coupled with its support for the aero graphics engine, it makes you feel more amazing. By the way, aero is an engine dedicated to 3D desktop development. It enables magical 3D flip on the desktop. This is definitely a magical attempt in the history of the operating system, although the requirements for hardware configuration are amazing, it has been reported that Vista is very picky about the video card because of Aero running.

WPF foreground Analysis

In fact, WPF is not just a graphics engine. It will bring a revolution to the Development of Windows applications, because the new architecture provides a brand new development model. Of course, for common users, the most intuitive thing is that the interface is getting more and more beautiful and looks more comfortable. But for developers, the interface display and code will be better separated, this is different from the previous desktop application development (interface settings and code are integrated), which is one of the revolutionary changes. There is also the integration of desktop applications and browser applications. According to the commitment of MS, the developing WPF/e, that is, the WPF everywhere version, it will provide comprehensive browser support for WPF-based applications, which means that applications developed in the future can run on different operating systems based on browsers, of course, as we are still developing, we are not sure whether there will be certain restrictions. According to the definition of WPF/e, WPF/E is still a subset of WPF, not a subsequent version. In general, the future of WPF should be bright.

Current development response to WPF

At present, many people have begun to consider or have switched to WPF, and a new learning craze has begun. However, according to my recent studies and knowledge, there are very few documents about WPF in China. Besides the materials provided by msdn, they are mostly from abroad, some are the materials on the blog of overseas developers, of course, in English. Therefore, it would be a good time to introduce some WPF books. In addition, several foreign WPF books have just been listed. If we can introduce them as soon as possible, it will definitely help Chinese developers catch up with the international market in the shortest time.

At present, Microsoft provides services and support for WPF.

With the release of Vista RTM, a new round of Microsoft technology promotion has begun. In fact, WPF has been widely promoted before, because the CTP version has been released for some time. Of course, many developers mainly focus on technical research, and a few companies have begun to work on WPF-based product R & D.

1. The official version of WPF has been released (with the official version of. NET Framework 3.0). You can download it from msdn for free.

2. the corresponding technical support has started, but it is currently limited to major customers, mainly for pre-sales technical support. Technical support for General developers may not start until March (I personally know the situation, please refer to the information published on the official Microsoft technical support website)

3. the WPF vs2005 plug-in currently only has the Community preview version (CTP version). It is also free to download from msdn. However, the official version may take some time, however, you can use the CTP version to develop the wysiwyg wpf in vs2005.

4. the WPF/e CTP version has been released. You can download it for free on msdn. WPF/e sample pack for CTP is also released.

Microsoft Web site on WPF: http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/building/presentation/

The latest February user preview can be downloaded from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getthebeta/default.aspx

There are two WPF discussion groups on msdn:

1) http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowForum.aspx? Forumid = 119.

2) http://msdn.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.aspx? DG = Microsoft. Public. Windows. developer. winfx. aveon & lang = en & Cr = us

There are also several blogs about WPF:

Blog of http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/ timsneath

Http://blogs.msdn.com/atc_avalon_team/default.aspx, This is the blog of Microsoft engineering aveon group.

Blog by http://blogs.msdn.com/okoboji/ Kevin moore (WPF pm)

Http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/articles/475132.aspx Tim sneath gives a list of WPF-related blogger

Some talk and demo of http://microsoft.sitestream.com/PDC05/ pdc05