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ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF WPF:

Advantages:
Disadvantages:
WPF TOOLS:
  1. Microsoft Visual Studio: is a developer-oriented IDE that contains a combination of XAML editor and WPF visual designer, beginning with Visual Studio 2008. The WPF designer add-in, codenamed Cider, is a WYSIWYG editor for creating WPF windows, pages and user controls. It was available earlier as Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 CTP for the initial release of WPF but is no longer available.
  2. Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2008 and later editions, particularly Visual C# Express and Visual Basic Express, also have the WPF designer integrated.
  3. Microsoft Expression Blend: is a designer-oriented tool that provides an art board for the creation of WPF applications with 2D and 3D graphics, text and forms content. It generates XAML that may be exported into other tools and shares solution (sln files) and project formats (csproj, vbproj) with Microsoft Visual Studio.
  4. Microsoft Expression Design: is a bitmap and 2D-vector graphics tool that allows export to XAML.
  5. XAMLPad: is a lightweight tool included in the .NET Framework SDK. It can create and render XAML files using a split screen UI layout. It also provides a tree view of the markup in a panel.

WPF ASSEMBLIES AND NAMESPACES:

Primary assemblies:
Namespaces
CLASS HIERARCHY OF WPF:

WPF2.gif

WPF ARCHITECTURE:

WPF3.gif

In this architecture these three Assemblies can be categorized as:
MANAGED LAYER:

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) managed layer is a set of classes and types that are built using the .NET Framework which means that it is managed by Common Language Runtime (CLR). In this layer there are three assemblies that comprise the WPF framework:
  1. PresentationFramework.dll: Creates the High level elements like layout panels, controls, windows, styles etc.
  2. PresentationCore.dll: It holds base types such as UIElement, Visual from which all shapes and controls are derived in PresentationFramework.dll.
  3. WindowsBase.dll: They hold even more basic elements which are capable to be used outside the WPF environment like Dispatcher object, Dependency Objects. I will discuss each of them later.

UNMANAGED LAYER
  1. Milcore.dll: The unmanaged layer of WPF is called milcore or Media Integration Library Core. It basically translates the WPF higher level objects like layout panels, buttons, animation etc... Into textures that Direct3D expects. It is the main rendering engine of WPF.
  2. WindowsCodecs.dll: This is another low level API which is used for imaging support in WPF applications. WindowsCodecs.dll comprises of a number of codecs which encodes / decodes images into vector graphics that would be rendered into WPF screen.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WPF AND SILVERLIGHT

Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) are 2 different products from Microsoft, but have lot of overlap. Silverlight is a subset of WPF in terms of features and functionality. Silverlight was of course known as WPF/E where E means everywhere. Both use XAML, a form of XML to define controls but WPF is purely for windows while Silverlight runs in the browser on Windows and Macs. So, here are the differences between WPF and Silverlight:
  1. Silverlight is meant to be used online, while WPF is for local use.
  2. Silverlight lacks access to local resources, while WPF can utilize local resources.
  3. Silverlight only has perspective 3D support, while WPF is capable of full 3D images.
  4. Silverlight does not support some of the more advanced concepts of WPF such as controls and templating.
  5. Silverlight integrates right into an HTML page whereas WPF XAML files have to be loaded via a frame if they want to mix with HTML content.