Graphics Framework Built Around XML

The Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF, formerly code-named Avalon) is a new graphics engine and API that delivers high-end graphics previously available only to game developers and supports Microsoft’s most recent programming languages and tools. WPF will enable developers programming on top of the .NET Framework 3.0 to build improved UIs for applications on the latest Windows versions, which Microsoft hopes will drive adoption of those versions. However, Microsoft must overcome skepticism on the part of IT developers that such graphics are necessary or even desirable in business applications.

WPF provides basic graphic functions, such as windows, dialog boxes, and menus, currently covered by two elements of the Win32 APIs: USER, which provides functions such as display windows, menus, and dialog boxes, and GDI, which provides APIs for drawing graphics such as lines and bitmaps. (Most corporate developers, however, do not use WIN32 directly. Instead they use tools, such as Visual Basic, that wrap the underlying APIs into an easier-to-use form.) Although USER and GDI will continue to be part of Windows and applications built on them will continue to run, Microsoft is encouraging developers to use WPF instead, in part to get the benefits of the .NET Framework Common Language Runtime (CLR) on which WPF is based.