Talk:Windows Presentation Foundation

message: 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)
thread_title:  Rewrite for Audience 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Confusing ? 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Written like an Advertisement 

message: 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)
replies: text: Of course it should be updated. Help in any way is appreciated. --soum talk 12:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Effects and WPF 3.5 SP1 

message: 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:
  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Frank Hileman (talk • contribs) 23:43, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This was duped by me as a mistake. I apologize. Cleaned it up. Aly89 (talk) 14:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems in WPF 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Removed WPF Applications 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Broken Links 

message: 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)
thread_title:  First paragraph of first section needs re-write 

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

message: 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)
thread_title:  Plain language description of what it is 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Executive Summary? 

message: There should show code examples to feel what it is. VictorPorton (talk) 19:17, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: @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)
thread_title:  Should show code examples