Talk:Windows Presentation Foundation

Rewrite for Audience

I really think this page needs a rewrite. It's hard to tell who the audience is for. If this is for people wishing to learn about the technical details of WPF, it's basically worthless, as it's a bunch of random stuff about the API without much information on the structure or implementation of it. If this is for non-technical people, the entire article is WAY too complicated. The structure is also rather poor, as it is basically a bullet-point list of stuff that people have added over time; this creates no real structure. ClamIAm 02:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The section on OpenGL is not related to WPF. WPF operates through DirectX but it is essentially a usermode framework. Concerns about OpenGL should be moved to WGF or Windows_vista

Furthermore silverlight does support 3D. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.69.245.159 (talk) 18:43, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Much of it also reads like an advertisement.92.105.96.90 (talk) 12:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Release

When is the expected release date?

It's already out! http://www.netfx3.com/blogs/news_and_announcements/archive/2006/11/06/.NET-Framework-3.0-has-been-released_2100_.aspx

Legal issues

Is it based on any proprietary technology or patents? Pgr94 02:44, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, who cares? :-)

WPF/E is a subset of WPF, and stands for "Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere". It is basically a mobile version of WPF, I think this is a little confusing. Isn't WPF/E more like a plug-in similar to Falsh. Maybe use "Plug-in" instead of "mobile version"

Confusing ?

How is this topic any more or less confusing than articles such as the Python language?

Yes, it does need some smoothing out - probably a better 'executive level' summary before explaining the parts of this framework would help give managers interviewing developer candidates just enough information to know if/when someone is blowing smoke.

Then again, how else would one explain how microsoft developers are going to hook into the windows architecture without having to know the gory details on used to have to learn via the Windows API? Meandean 09:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Complete Nonsense ?

I have tremendous difficulty with the sentence, "Applications written in WPF are visually of a higher quality." What does this mean precisely? It is a weighted and completely biased assesment. An acceptable statement should discuss the differences of visual rendering compared to previous methods. Additionally, it must provide citation to present the claim in a respondable manner.

Written like an Advertisement

Many of the references provided are from Microsoft itself. I search for product information on Wikipedia (rather than from the product vendor's own website) because I want both sides of the story. I want to know what the product is, but I also want some counterpoint... I want to see what opinion there is that can fault a product... that's what the vendor's website won't have. Example, the article says "Silverlight is cross-platform", which is what Microsoft has said about its other technologies such as its video and audio formats, but in practice the cross-platform ability is always hampered, hobbled or non-existent. Lets get more counterpoint to this article. 124.168.11.186 21:40, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Though, "counterpoints" in articles about Microsoft systems tend to consist of FLOSS zealots injecting the word "proprietary" or otherwise stating the non-FLOSS status in a very negative and FUD-sounding way, and in inappropriately prominent places. I mean, some actual technical response on real design flaws would be really nice, but I'm afraid we're more likely to see anti-MS/anti-commercial evangelism that boils down to plastering the same tired propaganda onto every article that deals with systems that don't conform to a particular legal and/or philanthropic model. 99.242.122.212 (talk) 01:58, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to second that wholeheartedly. It's very much like the stuff found on Microsoft's website. Also, I didn't see any serious consideration given to drawbacks and problems caused by the framework.

82.99.194.166 (talk) 09:48, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Criticism

I agree with above, that the article sounds a bit like an advertisement and tried to balance it out with a criticism section with cited references. Please discuss the section here and do not delete it,WPF has only few amount of controls.

What you added is full of errors and misrepresentations of what is stated by the reference.

• "Some claim that it suffered from "overmarketing" and is weak under the hood"

• You provided just one reference to support this statement. One instance is not "some". Read WP:WEASEL. One commentator saying something does not make it a fact. Its still an opinion. You have to present it as opinion only. Like "Eric Lai of PC World says..."
• None of the claims made in this statement are supported by the reference. Regarding the "overmarketing" bit, what the reference says is "Microsoft Corp. undoubtedly wanted to avoid its current predicament. It has been publicly talking up features in Vista since 2003 -- half a decade. But such "overmarketing," as Krasowski calls it, can rebound." They are criticizing Vista and not WPF.
• Regarding the "weak undre the hood" bit, "You can't write an enterprise app like a demo. It'd be all soft and weak under the hood" is what is in the reference. It is describing the application that would be written for the platform. It is not a criticism of the platform (WPF) itself.

• "The risk to WPF is that some developers may bypass WPF in favor of those further down the road"

• Developers bypassing WPF may be due to a billion reasons. All by itself, this statement is not a criticism. Unless the statement substantiates the reasons why they are bypassing (and that must be due to shortcomings in the platform), this does not belong here.
• This one also is WP:WEASEL. One or two reference does not make "some".
• Its uncited.

• "Other critics argue that making applications more pleasing to the eye may hinder performance and lead to a confusingly cluttered interface"

• Its uncited. Who are the "other critics" and just how notable are they?
• How is an application that misuses the platform a criticism of the platform itself? If this has to be here, the answer to this must be in the statement and supported directly by the reference. Not any WP:OR by means of the editors.

• "While developers may feel that improving data presentation is a good thing, they don’t necessarily believe WPF is the answer."

• Uncited. Who are the devlopers to believe this?
• WP:WEASEL. Just one or two (or one or two thousand or even one or two hundred thousand) developers are not a representative or every developer in the world.

• These developers may continue to use Windows Forms for years to come, never adopting WPF."

• Uncited.

The way it currently stands, the section does not belong here. All these issues must be fixed before reinstating.

I am not saying WPF hasn't received any criticism. It has. For its performance and resource usage mainly. But your writing never even touched the actual points it has been criticized for; rather you spun references and created unsubstantiated and uncited opinions to counter positive statements!!! Adding negative POV to balance positives is not the way NPOV is achieved. --soum ^talk 02:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Soumyasch, please calm down and be reasonable WP:CIV. From reading your profile it is clear this is a technology in which you claim interest. Don't allow this to become ownership WP:OWN. If you don't like the style of the WPF criticism, that is valid concern, and might I suggest you help by adding to the section. If you don't like the subject of WPF criticism, that would a whole other problem with your point of view WP:NPOV.

Regarding the weakness claim, you asked for a reference to this claim, I cited one. You then changed position claiming one reference was not enough. Perhaps you can tell me how many references are needed to substantiate a claim? Perhaps you should try reading the reference first. You may have seen that it was in fact talking about WPF and it was based on a large developer survey including quotes from the CTO of the large third party company Developer Express, or the vice president of 20 developer Microsoft focused firm [1]. Mark Kaelin, link to from google news, believes that decribng WPF as "weak under the hood" sums it up best [2].

"None of our customers are saying, 'We need those WPF controls now!' (Vista’s new graphical subsystem) We find most are still sticking with ASP.Net and Windows Forms applications" [3]

Again, please avoid ownership WP:OWN. If you don't like the style of the WPF criticism, then please modify it by add to the section rather than just deleting it altogether. Given that others feel as if this article is written like an advertisement, I am sure with a little patience and time others will help with the wording. They can't do this if you continue to delete the section. Sysrpl (talk) 08:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Read what I said will you? I pointed out all the problems. It is you who didn't fix anby of the issues. The "weakness" was reference wasn't pointed out. Its just that the reference never said any words like some and many. You inserted those word yourself. Thats OR. I already pointed you to WP:WEASEL, read that on how to fix it. Not even the new link you gave says its weak under the hood. And where does it say in ""You can't write an enterprise app like a demo. It'd be all soft and weak under the hood" that the platform is the one being weak under the hood?

And would you care to explain where I violated WP:CIV? Don't make baseless accusations! --soum ^talk 10:58, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Soumyasch, I assure you I've carefully read and considered your statements, though I must say I didn't appreciate the raucous yelling when a single exclamation point was sufficient. At the risk of sounding a tad redundant, WP:WEASEL is a style issue. Given that the phrasing of those opinions are based on a developer survey, and the points are taken (almost lifted) from two articles, I am hoping that others can reformat the section in a manner agreeable to all (while preserving the facts). Sysrpl (talk) 01:49, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Soum spends a significant portion of his free time working on improving the encyclopedia, in part by being one of the less than 1,000 active administrators. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that someone with 50 edits in the last 18 months (that's you) isn't going to be the one to tell him something he doesn't already know about Wikipedia's policies and content guidelines.

The article you're using as the sole source for the criticism takes a bizarre stance -- that WPF is targeted towards enterprise application developers. It's really not. Microsoft makes very little effort to target WPF towards that market. The article may as well be asking why 3D game developers are avoiding Javascript for building rendering engines. Besides that, most of the article is about writing "Vista-specific" applications, which doesn't even include WPF, considering that WPF is part of the .NET Framework, and this available for XP and Server 2003. In other words, the criticism posed by the article is extremely vague; a few words isn't good enough for Wikipedia. -/- Warren 02:10, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

WPF has long been targeted to enterprise developers, especially the Silverlight form of wpf. As far as "ownership," one can push this to an absurd extreme--of course anyone taking the trouble to research and write a lengthy article is more likely to be moved by the feeling the topic is worthy of his time. Linux and firefox articles are very partial, but I don't see any ownership or advertisement flags on them. Let's try to be reasonable here--these "ownership" and "advertisement" objections are more signs of the opposite ownership of critics than a genuine inaccuracy or problem with the quality. Unlike some of the more notoriously politicized wikipedia entries, no group has been barred from adding an extensive criticism, if they have some thoughtful criticism to make. LaSpn (talk) 01:32, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

This is the typical Wikipedia crap to be expected with anything MS related. Compare with any similar API-relaed article from a non-MS source. Pathetic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.244.199.2 (talk) 09:42, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Effects and WPF 3.5 SP1

Should the page be updated to reflect WPF 3.5 and sp1? For example effects are now supported through the GPU and will fall back to software if needed and custom effects are supported through HLSL. I think there are a bunch of other new or improved features too. Channel 9 has videos on it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.93.142.163 (talk) 20:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course it should be updated. Help in any way is appreciated. --soum ^talk 12:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Problems in WPF

WPF has many problems. The library is extremely large for the purpose it is designed. Many people have trouble figuring out how to do common tasks. Many people have trouble with the large number of abstractions. Performance, compared to other retained mode vector graphics systems, is poor. Memory usage is high. Layering on top of a 3D rendering layer introduces many complexities (out of date drivers can cause bugs, poor performance, or installation complexities). It does not provide any fast immediate mode rendering API for developers to use. The closest one is still a retained mode API, with all the limitations that implies.

I am not going to find all the references to include this information in the article, but I am throwing these ideas out there, so if someone wants to find the information and fix the article, they can. Here is one page of problems: [4] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Frank Hileman (talk • contribs) 23:43, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

This was duped by me as a mistake. I apologize. Cleaned it up. Aly89 (talk) 14:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I would like to see a section on problems and criticisms. It seems to be talking about all its features and technical implementation without giving its problems, criticisms, or even why it is needed.--71.76.174.137 (talk) 00:54, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Removed WPF Applications

I've removed this section because it's a spam magnet. There's no value in listing every obscure app that uses WPF here. VG ☎ 21:55, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why a few popular examples couldn't be listed in an existing relevant section. --71.76.174.137 (talk) 00:51, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Broken Links

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=F54F5537-CC86-4BF5-AE44-F5A1E805680D&displaylang=en is a broken link, please remove it. I've not long repaired the header for this URI. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.7.230.41 (talk) 20:57, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

First paragraph of first section needs re-write

I don't have a problem with the body of the article: it forms a valuable, if encylopedic, reference that I can return to. I hope that it is not changed.

And I think that the first sentence is excellent. At present: "The Windows Presentation Foundation (or WPF) is a graphical subsystem for rendering user interfaces in Windows-based applications"

But the next bit is worthless:

WPF, initially released as part of .NET Framework 3.0, is another step in Microsoft’s evolving rich client strategy. Designed to remove dependencies on the aging GDI subsystem ,

Specifically:

(1) The initial release history has no place in the introductory section.

(2) Information about Microsoft's stratagy belong in a discussion of Microsoft strategy, not in the introductory section of a WPF article.

(3) WPF is not "designed to remove dependancies": that is a factual error which confuses cause with effect, an error which is compounded by the reference to GDI: GDI has been re-designed to work with WPF, because WPF requires GDI to work in a particular way... so WPF has been designed to create a dependency on the new GDI subsystem? No, WPF was designed to provide a managed code interface for 3D user interface design.

WPF is built on DirectX OK

which provides hardware acceleration and enables modern UI features like transparency, gradients and transforms NO. Hardware provides hardware accelaration etc. DirectX is a specification and an API. Use of the specification as a proxy term for the hardware probably indicates that the author actually thinks that way, which betrays an OS centric, rather than hardware centric, view of computers. This is not a good way to think about hardware acceleration. This goes directly to the question of whether WPF is any good, so the introduction is a bad place to make this error.

Boldface type notwithstanding, this is in fact a perfectly reasonable way to think about hardware acceleration: direct3d does provide, i.e. make available, hardware accleration features with next to no overhead to apps that are build on direct3d (e.g. wpf). moreover, it is not especially "OS centric": gpus *today* are manufactured primarily to direct3d specs (e.g. "direct3d 10 cards"), so your beef is really with nvidia and ati. That may change, but right now, direct3d version number is probably the single best shorthand term to quickly describe graphics card capability.

WPF provides a consistent programming model An interesting assertion, that should be supported by reference. It implies that other programming models are not consistant? Actually, I know what this means, but only after thinking about it. That is not what you want here.

for building applications as compared to what? and provides a clear separation between the user interface and the business logic.WTF?

The first paragraph of the first section is critical for how people will react to this article. Filling it full of smooth garbage is not doing anyone any favours, no matter how well written.

There is a misconception about hardware acceleration, GDI+ is hardware accelerate, so every single application that used GDI+ (i.e. native interface) is hardware accelerate. Instead, WPF uses other kind of hardware acceleration, may be it uses 3d for some effects. The resultant is that sometimes the text looks blurry and the performance is even worst that the old Windows Form (GDI+).

The above comment is itself a misconception. wpf is indeed much faster because it uses direct 3d, a thin layer api that knows the hardware acceleration features of modern gpus and optimizes their use (indeed, gpus are designed and manufactured to enable use of the latest direct3d features). in contrast, gdi+ is an older higher-level c++ based api based off gdi that was written long before modern gpus came and is many times slower; gdi emulates in software (i.e. in the cpu) many features that direct3d instead simply tells the gpu, which is much better equipped for graphics, to perform. the "blurry text" issue has nothing whatsoever to do with Direct3d and has been corrected in the latest release of wpf (wpf 4.0) LaSpn (talk) 09:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

History section missing

When was WPF first conceived? When first released? Version history? — Timwi (talk) 16:40, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Not only is the article poorly written, it is yet another one written in the present tense with no history at all. This, like far too many articles, guarantees that in a few short years the article will have to be re-written. Every computer technology has a rise, a peak use, and a decline. None of the first part is examined here.

Mydogtrouble (talk) 12:06, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Plain language description of what it is

So I've been wondering for a while what exactly this is. This article isn't currently very useful for finding out what people are usually referring to when they talk about "WPF applications." But I just ran into a wonderfully clarifying remark on Ars Technica that helped a lot:

In 2006, Microsoft released WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), a .NET library for producing GUI applications.

From this article. I'm sure this is to some degree an over-simplification, so I wanted to put it here to hear the corrections. But in the interests of making technical articles understandable, it'd really help if I could put something this concrete into the first paragraph of the lead. Maybe it's not always just a .NET GUI library. But apparently it is usually used that way? Could I phrase it as something like "It is a .NET library often used for producing graphical interfaces for applications."?

--Qwerty0 (talk) 20:12, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Executive Summary?

I'm a Microsoft specialist and know most of their things very well, but I don't know what this WPF exactly is, because I'm no longer used to all the current technologies and especially the used terminology. And looking at this huge article with the .NET Framework stack, its codename during development and a lot of useless things, it doesn't help to get a quick understanding of what this is.

What I'd quickly need to know if this:

• Is this browser-based or a client technology? Or some mix?
• If it's browser-based, then are there any plug-ins necessary? (No.) Or does it only work with IE?
• If it's a client technology (looks like it is) then how does it run there? Is this any .NET extension or what?
• What's the difference between a normal .NET application and a WPF application?

Ok, the german version of this article is a lot better. From what I understand now, it's just using a part of the .NET Framework. And a part that is UI centered. This same code can be used in Silverlight applications. So there's some kind of separation of what can be used and what not. It should be mentioned on how this separation works which parts of the framework can be used and which not. Especially what the limitations (compared to a normal .NET application) are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.134.254.25 (talk) 15:57, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

--193.134.254.24 (talk) 15:01, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Should show code examples

There should show code examples to feel what it is. VictorPorton (talk) 19:17, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

@VictorPorton I agree - I have put a brief Hello, World! style example with an explanation of what it's doing Bugghost🎤:🐛👻 18:14, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Cleaning up Architecture section

Last couple of days I've rewritten a lot of this article as most of it was very outdated, based on very early .Net Framework versions of WPF when it was first released. There were extensive references to XBAPs (unsupported in all browsers since about 2015, no longer supported in WPF .NET at all), instructions on how to get WPF running in Windows XP, a diagram of how WPF fit in with .Net Framework 3 (from 2008), lists of 3rd party tools that have been deprecated for nearly a decade, etc etc. It was old old. I've reworked most of it but the parts I haven't touched are the Features section and the Architecture section. The Features section is possibly over-detailed and old but generally fine.

The Architecture section, however, is a wall of very dense unstructured stream-of-consciousness style technical text. Going through the edit history of this article, this section has basically been untouched since it was first added in 2007. Based on how outdated the rest of the article was, I'm pretty confident that this section will have outdated details in it too, but I honestly cannot be bothered to comb through all of it to check, especially as a lot of it is obscure implementation details that aren't relevant to developers who just use WPF as a library. It also desperately needs some better formatting and sub sections because at the moment no one, including me, can be bothered to read all that - and especially not anyone who came to this article to learn the basics about WPF.

I've put a template on that section saying it's overly detailed, but really I want to delete it completely and write a much shorter version, because it's currently not helpful, it's too detailed, and it is a copyediting nightmare - but on the otherhand it does contain a lot of cited information, so deleting it may be controversial. Does anyone have any objections to me simply deleting it? If no objections I will do so soon. Bugghost🎤:🐛👻 11:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Its been a few days now, so I think that's enough notice. I've deleted the Architecture section for the reasons outlined above. If anyone disagrees feel free to revert, I'm happy to compromise if other people think deletion is a step too far BugGhost🎤 12:44, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on this article. I'm glad someone like you came along to modernize it. Another thing jumping out at me is the bulleted lists. A non-list article should keep bulleted lists to a minimum. If you're willing, we should try to convert those to prose. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:49, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I agree about the bulleted lists, by far the worst offender is the Features section, which is next on my update warpath. Main changes would be converting to prose like you suggest, and removing some of the unnecessary detail. BugGhost🎤 06:51, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good! –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:54, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

This is now done - the Features section has been de-bulleted and condensed. I merged several sections that I felt were similar (ie. Media services + Direct3D + Effects → Media & Graphics; Documents and text; Alternative input and accessibility), deleted some outdated or irrelevant things, and added a bunch of citations where they were needed. There are still some bullets in the article but I feel what remains is justifiable. Probably could do with a second pass but I think I'm done for the day at least. BugGhost🎤 16:09, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I read a couple of the sections you worked on. Very nice work. Looks much more like a standard Wikipedia article now. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:15, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi Novem - sorry to bug you, I've done some more work on this article and earlier I upgraded the content rating from a "Start" to a B - it's my first time overhauling an article, and its my first time changing a letter content rating - do you think that's a roughly accurate class? (I won't be offended if you think that's an overrating) BugGhost🎤 21:35, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

It is my impression that Wikipedia:Content assessment#Grades of stub, start, and C can be given by anyone, but that B, GA, A, and FA need to be given through a more formal process and should not be self-assigned. Because of this, I'd recommend that it be set to C.

B class is usually assigned by someone in the WikiProject, but Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science looks a bit inactive.

It could be a fun project for you to nominate this article for GA (good article). You may need to improve the sourcing though. Books and textbooks would probably be the ideal computer science sources. Documentation websites such as learn.microsoft.com may be a bit more WP:PRIMARY than is ideal for an encyclopedia (encyclopedias like WP:SECONDARY and WP:TERTIARY sources).

As always, thanks for your work on this article. It's always nice to see a newer editor come in and do a great job.

P.S. If you want to ask questions in real time, make friends, etc. you may be interested in WP:DISCORD. The channels #english-wikipedia and #quality-articles would be great places to ask the many questions you're sure to have about how to get this article to GA. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:07, 25 May 2024 (UTC)