What is Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)?
Applies to: 
Visual Studio 
Visual Studio for Mac
Note
This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here
Windows Presentation Foundation is a UI framework that creates desktop client applications. The WPF development platform supports a broad set of application development features, including an application model, resources, controls, graphics, layout, data binding, documents, and security.
WPF is part of .NET, so if you have previously built applications with .NET using ASP.NET or Windows Forms, the programming experience should be familiar. WPF uses the Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) to provide a declarative model for application programming.
Get started with WPF
This section has topics that introduce and help you get started with WPF.
| Subject | Articles |
|---|---|
| I want to jump right in... | Walkthrough: My first WPF desktop application |
| I want to compare XAML design tools... | Design XAML in Visual Studio and Blend for Visual Studio |
| New to .NET? | .NET guide Application Essentials Get Started with Visual C# |
| Tell me more about WPF... | WPF overview XAML overview (WPF) Controls Data binding overview WPF data binding with LINQ to XML |
| Are you a Windows Forms developer? | Windows Forms controls and equivalent WPF controls Supported scenarios in WPF and Windows Forms interoperation |