windows presentation foundation client application

How to Use Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

Setting Up Your Environment

First, ensure you have Visual Studio installed on your system. If not, you can download it from the official Visual Studio website .

Creating a New WPF Application

After setting up Visual Studio, follow these steps to create a new WPF Application:

• Open Visual Studio and select 'Create a new project'.
• Search for 'WPF App (.NET Framework)' in the search bar.
• Choose the template and then click 'Next'.
• Give your project a name, select a location to save it, and then click 'Create'.

Understanding the WPF Application Structure

When your WPF application is created, there are some default files generated:

• App.xaml: This is the application configuration file. It contains startup URI.
• MainWindows.xaml: This is the main window file. It contains the UI components of the application.

Writing Your First WPF Application

Let's create a simple WPF application that displays a button. When the button is clicked, it displays a 'Hello, World!' message.

In the MainWindow.xaml.cs file, add the following code:

This WPF application displays a button. When you click the button, it shows a message box with the 'Hello, World!' message.

WPF is a powerful framework for building desktop applications. However, if you require more advanced functionality, you may need to hire .NET remote developers .

In this guide, we have learned how to create a simple WPF application. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what you can achieve with WPF. With its rich set of features, you can create complex and aesthetically pleasing desktop applications.

If you're interested in enhancing this article or becoming a contributing author, we'd love to hear from you.

Please contact Sasha at [email protected] to discuss the opportunity further or to inquire about adding a direct link to your resource. We welcome your collaboration and contributions!

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Windows Presentation Foundation

WPF, .NET platform and Visual Studio enable you to develop data-centric, modern line of business applications

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Power, security, and flexibility.

.NET Framework for desktop provides a comprehensive and consistent programming model for building data-centric applications that enable seamless and secure communication.

Rich, productive, extensible

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and XAML combine into a rich presentation system for building Windows desktop applications with visually stunning user experiences that incorporate UI, media, and complex business models. Rapidly develop enterprise-class line of business applications with a comprehensive set of features like controls, data binding, animation, styles, templates and more.

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Enhance your developer productivity with advanced syntax highlighting, IntelliSense code completion, and intuitive source navigation in the code editor built on the .NET Compiler Platform (“Roslyn “) . Optimize and maintain your code-base with powerful refactoring and duplicate code detection tools.

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Create engaging user interfaces for Windows Desktop Applications with Blend for Visual Studio, the premier professional design tool for XAML applications. Build beautiful transitions and visualizations using Blend’s full suite of vector drawing tools, powerful template editing features, real-time animation, visual state management and more.

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Streamline your development experience with first class debugging features like IntelliTrace, Code execution control and inspection, UI debugging tools for XAML, and a great experience for understanding and resolving Exceptions.

Measure, identify, improve

Optimize your WPF applications by using tools like CPU Usage, Memory Usage, GPU Usage and App Timeline in the Performance and Diagnostics hub. Identify bottlenecks and improve your performance with a scenario-centric view of resource usage in your application.

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Windows Presentation Foundation Development Cookbook, published by Packt

PacktPublishing/Windows-Presentation-Foundation-Development-Cookbook

Folders and files.

Repository files navigation

Windows presentation foundation development cookbook.

This is the code repository for Windows Presentation Foundation Development Cookbook , published by Packt . It contains all the supporting project files necessary to work through the book from start to finish.

About the Book

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is Microsoft's development tool for building rich Windows client user experiences that incorporate UIs, media, and documents. With the updates in .NET 4.7, Visual Studio 2017, C# 7, and .NET Standard 2.0, WPF has taken giant strides and is now easier than ever for developers to use.

Instructions and Navigation

All of the code is organized into folders. Each folder starts with a number followed by the application name. For example, Chapter02.

All code files are presdent in their respective folders.

The code will look like the following:

This book assumes that the reader has knowledge of .NET Framework and C# (at least C# version 3.0, but C# 7.0 or higher version is preferable) and has working experience of Visual Studio 2015 or higher (Visual Studio 2017 is preferable). Basic knowledge of WPF and XAML has been assumed.

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Contributors 4

The Complete Beginner’s Guide to WPF in C#: From Basics to Your First App

Table of Contents

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a free and open-source graphical subsystem (similar to WinForms) originally developed by Microsoft for rendering user interfaces in Windows-based applications. WPF, now available in .NET Core as well, uses DirectX and provides a consistent programming model for building applications and offers a clear separation between the user interface and the business logic.

Written in C#  WPF allows developers to create a wide range of both standalone and browser-hosted applications. This kind of versatility makes it a popular choice for companies looking to hire C# developers. With its powerful and flexible capabilities, you can create a variety of applications, from a simple UI like a form-based application to a complex UI like a modern website.

Whether you’re a business seeking to hire C# developers or an aspiring developer looking to broaden your skills, understanding the fundamentals of WPF is key. Let’s delve deeper into creating our first WPF application in C#.

The Basics of WPF

WPF, unlike traditional WinForms, provides an object-oriented and declarative approach to developing UIs, which means you can create and manipulate your UI as objects and you can define your UI and its behavior using markup and code-behind, respectively.

In WPF, everything displayed on the window is a control, and these controls are part of a vast, well-structured hierarchy. Every control (like a button, a label, or a checkbox) is a class in WPF. So, you can inherit from these classes and create your own controls with custom behaviors.

Another essential feature of WPF is its layout system, which allows controls to automatically adjust their size and position according to changes in the window size, ensuring a dynamic and responsive user interface.

Your First WPF Application in C#

Before we get started, make sure you have installed Visual Studio. If not, you can download it from the Microsoft website.

Let’s create a simple WPF application that contains a button and a text block. When the button is clicked, the text block will display “Hello, WPF!”.

Step 1: Create a new WPF Application Project

Launch Visual Studio, click on “Create a new project” , then choose “WPF App (.NET Core)” from the project template list, then click on “Next” . Name the project “MyFirstWPFApp “, and click “Create”.

Step 2: Understanding the Generated Code

The new project will create some files automatically. Two important ones are `MainWindow.xaml` and `MainWindow.xaml.cs`.

`MainWindow.xaml` is where you define your UI using XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language), a markup language for designing UIs.

`MainWindow.xaml.cs` is the code-behind file for `MainWindow.xaml` , where you write the logic for the UI.

Step 3: Designing the UI

Open ` MainWindow.xaml` and replace the code with the following XAML code:

In the code above, a Button and a TextBlock control are placed within a Grid. The `Click` attribute in the Button control sets the event handler for the button’s Click event to `myButton_Click`.

Step 4: Writing the Code-Behind

Open `MainWindow.xaml.cs` and replace the code with the following:

In the code above, the `myButton_Click` method sets the Text property of `myTextBlock` to “Hello, WPF!” when `myButton` is clicked.

Step 5: Running the Application

Now, hit the “Start Debugging” button or press F5. A window with a button at the center should appear. When you click the button, the text “Hello, WPF!” appears at the top of the window.

Congratulations, you just created your first WPF application!

Advantages of Using WPF

WPF’s most significant advantages are its flexibility and control over look and feel. It uses XAML for front-end development, which separates design code (XAML) from logic code (C#), making it easier to work in teams where designers can work on XAML and programmers can work on the logic in C#.

Another significant advantage of WPF is data binding, a powerful feature that simplifies development by keeping the data and the presentation layer in sync. Changes in data automatically reflect in the UI and vice versa.

In WPF, you can also style and template controls, giving you complete control over a control’s look and feel. With WPF’s animation support, you can animate anything in your UI, providing a more interactive experience to your users.

WPF represents a significant step forward in client-side Windows development. Its powerful and flexible capabilities allow you to create a variety of applications, from a simple form-based application to a complex modern website. In this article, we have covered the basics of WPF, created a simple WPF application in C#, and discussed the advantages of using WPF. 

Whether you’re developing enterprise desktop applications or rich internet applications, learning WPF is a valuable skill for .NET developers. If you lack the necessary resources or expertise in-house, you might consider the option to hire C# developers who are skilled in WPF. Its power, flexibility, and modern paradigms enable developers to create compelling user experiences.

Now, it’s your turn to explore WPF and discover what you can create with it. Or, hire C# developers to expedite the process and develop high-quality applications for your needs. Happy coding!

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Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) (#WPF, #WPFWindows)

Twitter Tag:

#WPF, #WPFWindows

Introduction: Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a next-generation presentation system for building Windows client applications with visually stunning user experiences. With WPF, you can create a wide range of both standalone and browser-hosted applications.

The core of WPF is a resolution-independent and vector-based rendering engine that is built to take advantage of modern graphics hardware. WPF extends the core with a comprehensive set of application-development features that include Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), controls, data binding, layout, 2-D and 3-D graphics, animation, styles, templates, documents, media, text, and typography. WPF is included in the Microsoft .NET Framework, so you can build applications that incorporate other elements of the .NET Framework class library.

WPF separates the appearance of a user interface from its behavior. The appearance is generally specified in the Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), the behavior is implemented in a managed programming language like C# or Visual Basic. The two parts are tied together by data binding, events and commands.

The separation of appearance and behavior brings the following benefits:

• Appearance and behavior are loosely coupled.
• Designers and developers can work on separate models.
• Graphical design tools can work on simple XML documents instead of parsing code.

Markup & Code Behind: WPF offers additional programming enhancements for Windows client application development. One obvious enhancement is the ability to develop an application using both markup and code-behind.

Markup: XAML is an XML-based markup language that is used to implement an application’s appearance declaratively. It is typically used to create windows, dialog boxes, pages, and user controls, and to fill them with controls, shapes, and graphics.

Code-Behind: The main behavior of an application is to implement the functionality that responds to user interactions, including handling events (for example, clicking a menu, tool bar, or button) and calling business logic and data access logic in response. In WPF, this behavior is generally implemented in code that is associated with markup. This type of code is known as code-behind. The following example shows the code-behind and updated markup from the previous example.

The XAML language includes language-level features that make it possible to associate code files with markup files, from the markup file side. Specifically, the XAML language defines the language features x:Class Directive, x:Subclass Directive, and x:ClassModifier Directive.

x:Code: It is a directive element defined in XAML. An x:Code directive element can contain inline programming code. The code that is defined inline can interact with the XAML on the same page. The following example illustrates inline C# code. Notice that the code is inside the x:Code element and that the code must be surrounded by <CDATA[…]]> to escape the contents for XML, so that a XAML processor (interpreting either the XAML schema or the WPF schema) will not try to interpret the contents literally as XML.

Controls: The user experiences that are delivered by the application model are constructed controls. In WPF, “control” is an umbrella term that applies to a category of WPF classes that are hosted in either a window or a page, have a user interface (UI), and implement some behavior. Buttons, Menus, Navigation, Data display are some built-in WPF controls.

Layout: To arrange controls by location and size to form a layout. A key requirement of any layout is to adapt to changes in window size and display settings. Rather than forcing you to write the code to adapt a layout in these circumstances, WPF provides a first-class, extensible layout system for you.

The layout system is exposed to child controls through base WPF classes. For common layouts such as grids, stacking, and docking, WPF includes several layout controls:

• Canvas : Child controls provide their own layout.
• Dock Panel : Child controls are aligned to the edges of the panel.
• Grid : Child controls are positioned by rows and columns.
• Stack Panel : Child controls are stacked either vertically or horizontally.
• Virtualizing Stack Panel : Child controls are virtualized and arranged on a single line that is either horizontally or vertically oriented.
• Wrap Panel : Child controls are positioned in left-to-right order and wrapped to the next line when there are more controls on the current line than space allows.

Difference between WPF Page & WPF Window

• Window is a top-level container – similar to a Form in Windows Forms or a Window from any other UI platform whereas Page is a top-level element for hosted content. It may be hosted at the top-level within a Window, NavigationWindow, the browser, or a Frame. Page has the advantage of being agnostic to how it is hosted — e.g. you can host it in a NavigationWindow or the browser, and in either case there are certain properties that will propagate to its hosting container. These are WindowHeight, WindowWidth, and WindowTitle.
• Pages can be used for XAML Browser Applications, you can also load them into your own application using the Frame control, or you can use a NavigationWindow and create the equivalent of a browser like application.
• Pages are intended for use in Navigation applications (usually with Back and Forward buttons, e.g. Internet Explorer). Pages must be hosted in a NavigationWindow or a Frame whereas Windows are just normal WPF application Windows, but can host Pages via a frame container. Simply, Window is the root control that must be used to hold/host other controls (e.g. Button) as container whereas Page is a control which can be hosted in other container controls using NavigationWindow or a Frame. Note that NavigationWindow and Frame is another container controls. And Page control has its own goal to serve like other controls (e.g. Button). And the goal is to create browser like applications. So if you host Page in NavigationWindow, you will get the navigation implementation built-in.

Twitter Tag: #WPF, #WPFWindows

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What is the difference between Window Presentation Foundation and WCF? Which is newer?

So which one is the newer one, and why would I use one over the other. Or more importantly, over Windows Forms?

• 1 WPF and WCF are entirely different. WPF is for rich GUI application. WCF is for service oriented applications. WCF unifies Webserives+ remoting+ message queues+ into a single API. WPF is better choice over Windows forms, though you would have to invest time and efforts into it. WPF and WCF would solve different business problems. –  PRR Commented Nov 11, 2009 at 6:33
• 2 Which is newer: rocket ships or vanilla beans? Why should I use one or the other? –  Mike Hanson Commented Nov 11, 2009 at 8:55
• vanilla beans are newer Mike, everyone knows that! DOH –  Arcturus Commented Nov 11, 2009 at 9:36

3 Answers 3

Neither is newer than the other, they have both been cooking for roughly the same period of time.

HOWEVER they are totally different things :

WPF == Windows Presentation Foundation WCF == Windows Communication Foundation

WPF is the direct replacement for WinForms. WCF is a framework for talking to webservices, it replaces Remoting. I could waffle for hours on this, but that is a short answer for you :)

• 2 WPF is much, much more powerful than WinForms, and more efficient to work with too. Compare WinForms with raw GDI calls and WndProcs, and you will have some idea of the difference. Many things that are easy to do in WinForms are even easier in WPF, and many things that are nearly impossible in WinForms are easy in WPF. If you have a choice, WPF is almost always better than WinForms. The only exceptions are if you are running on embedded hardware with very limited performance, hardware over 10-12 years old, or must support Windows 2000 or Windows 9x. –  Ray Burns Commented Nov 11, 2009 at 4:35
• @slugster You cannot say it replaces Remoting . Remoting is still used for App domain communication. –  Searock Commented Jul 2, 2011 at 16:02

From Microsoft websites:

Windows Communication Foundation is...

a part of the .NET Framework that provides a unified programming model for rapidly building service-oriented applications that communicate across the web and the enterprise..

Windows Presentation Foundation

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) provides developers with a unified programming model for building rich Windows smart client user experiences that incorporate UI, media, and documents.

WPF is NOT a replacement for WinForms. Consider LOB applications, running on bulk enterprise hardware. The overhead of WPF is ridiculous.

Consider the following On my machine I have VS2008 and VS2010 installed.

Visual Studio 2008 (WinForms I believe) is only ~100mb of memory.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 (WPF) is ~300mb.

That's just stupid. There's no reason for VS to be using WPF. It doesn't need flashy graphics or anything special that WPF offers. I'm for one sticking to VS2008. There's a time and a place when WPF is great to use, but Visual Studio and as I said LOB applications are not the time or place, it's just adding ridiculous overhead for pointless reasons.

However, WPF is a lot easier to work with than WinForms (once you UNDERSTAND it, the learning curve is also a lot larger)

• Uh, you didn't think that through, yeah? WPF is the next generation on from WinForms, hence my comment about "replacement". As for why VS2010 is done in WPF.... i imagine it must be a whole bunch easier to do WPF rendering/layout etc when your IDE is written in WPF than it would be when the IDE is still predominantly C++ and COM based like VS2008. –  slugster Commented Nov 11, 2009 at 11:59
• ITS NOT A REPLACEMENT. Microsoft has no intentions of discontinuing WinForms –  y2k Commented Nov 11, 2009 at 20:01
• Duh, nobody ever said WinForms was going to be replaced, i don't know how you managed to read that into what i said. It most certainly is a replacement, in the same way that WinForms & .Net is a replacement for VB/MFC etc, you can still code in those older technologies if you wish, but fewer and fewer people are doing so. If you don't like the word "replacement" then think "next generation". –  slugster Commented Nov 12, 2009 at 0:08

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Professional Visual Studio 2013 by Bruce Johnson

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Chapter 18 Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Learning the basics of XAML
• Creating a WPF application
• Styling your WPF application
• Hosting WPF content in a Windows Forms project
• Hosting Windows Forms content in a WPF project
• Using the WPF Visualizer

When starting a new Windows client application in Visual Studio, you have two major technologies to choose from — a standard Windows Forms–based application, or a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)–based application. Both are essentially a different API for managing the presentation layer for your application. WPF is extremely powerful and flexible, and was designed to overcome many of the shortcomings and limitations of Windows Forms. In many ways you could consider WPF a successor to Windows Forms. However, WPF’s power and flexibility comes with a price in the form of a rather steep learning curve because it does things quite differently than Windows Forms.

This chapter guides you through the process to create a basic WPF application in Visual Studio 2013. It’s beyond the scope of this book to cover the WPF framework in any great detail — it would take an entire book to do so. Instead, what you see is an overview of Visual Studio 2013’s capabilities to help you rapidly build user interfaces using XAML.

WHAT IS WPF?

Windows Presentation Foundation is a presentation framework for Windows. But what makes WPF unique, and why should you consider using it over Windows Forms? Whereas Windows Forms uses ...

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Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

• ASP.NET MVC
• ASP.NET WebForms

Is WPF Dead? What Is The Best Alternative?

A UI framework is an important software tool for creating software programs. For years, people have been using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to create desktop client applications. Despite receiving multiple updates since its launch, based on our research, WPF seems to attract search engine queries if it still good for software development on Windows and even asking is WPF dead. Let’s find out – is WPF dead and what is the best alternative for WPF?

Table of Contents

Is WPF Dead?

As the great writer Mark Twain said in a letter to The New York Journal “ the report of my death was an exaggeration ” [1]. WPF is definitely not dead. The WPF project was open sourced by Microsoft and published on GitHub [2]. There is even a public roadmap for WPF with target dates for 2022. That said, WPF does represent a technology stack that in 2006 was very much cutting edge but in recent years Microsoft have very heavily pushed toward newer offerings which especially include Win UI 3 and .Net MAUI.

It seems that this diversification of offerings and the mid ’00s attempts to unify a UI framework for Microsoft’s beloved but ultimately unsuccessful foray into mobile phones managed to sow a little confusion about where things were ultimately going to end up. That said, even with WPF still being very much alive and kicking there are better alternatives, both for native Windows app development and cross-platform development which targets Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and Linux too.

WPF: What Is The Windows Presentation Foundation?

Windows Presentation Foundation or WPF is a UI framework that helps people build desktop applications for the Windows desktop. The WPF framework was initially launched in 2006 and has undergone multiple upgrades. The most recent version of WPF was released in February 2022.

The WPF framework supports a vast variety of application development features. It efficiently develops:

• Application model
• Application controls and resources
• Main layout

You can use WPF to improve the data binding and security of your software. WPF also supports multiple programming languages such as C#, C, C + +, DirectX, etc. The WPF software tool is used with the .NET framework to develop and run applications on Windows.

The primary reason for using WPF is that it simplifies software and its feature development on Windows.

Compatibility

WPF uses XAML to isolate and view source code from HTML. Its data binding feature allows software developers to not write glue code or manage data templates. So, if you are creating an application, you don’t have to code multiple times to generate the collection of basic app features and controls.

You can use WPF with any Windows. NET Framework and .NET Core 3+. However, WPF is only compatible with Windows Desktop. This means you cannot use it to create software for iOS, Android, and Linux systems.

Advantages of WPF

WPF has been the primary UI software developer tool due to its several advantages, which are:

• WPF comes with a mature ecosystem that is suitable for many articles and StackOverflow posts.
• It also has various excellent community libraries.
• By using the WPF software development tool, you can flexibly customize your app and its features just the way you want.

Disadvantages of WPF

As WPF has multiple advantages, it comes with some drawbacks as well. You need to work around these while using WPF.

• It is only applicable for creating Windows-related software and applications. To develop apps for Android and iOS, you must acquire a new UI framework.
• The XAML designer for creating the visual interface of XAML-based apps needs improvement.
• The WPF tool comes with steep learning curves and the inability to adapt quickly results in major pitfalls.

Is WPF still around?

WPF is alive since anyone can still download it and use it in app development for Windows. Yet, despite being operational, there are better UI framework tools than WPF that are providing software development services . Most of these new tools are compatible with Windows, Android, iOS, and other desktop systems.

What is the best alternative for WPF?

It’s the VCL.  VCL – an abbreviation of Visual Component Library – is a set of visual tools effective for the rapid development of Windows applications. It uses the easy to learn yet modern, powerful Delphi language for the program code and to drive the applications. The VCL is also available for C++ programmers and there is also a version for those people coding in Python . In this article we refer to Delphi’s use of the VCL but much of what we discuss applies also to C++ and, to a lesser degree, the Python version.

Using the VCL, you can create visual, non-visual, and utility classes for different apps, such as:

• Windows desktop applications
• Database applications
• Console applications

Delphi’s modern object Pascal foundation means the VCL uses, among others, a base class type TObject which provides default behavior and protocol for all classes and objects. The TObject class is responsible for introducing methods that are essential for implementing fundamental behaviors of an application. For example, construction, destruction, and message handling inside applications.

Using Delphi with the VCL offers better protection of Enterprise source code protection than WPF and Electron – a fact we explore in depth in another article . Note also that the VCL is very ‘close to the metal’, by this we mean it is interacting at the lowest possible level of abstraction from the operating system. The VCL targets Microsoft Windows and as a result of this focus offers an almost unparalleled level of speed, quality and reliability.

An application based on the VCL framework ‘talks’ directly to the Windows APIs and SDKs and doesn’t require you to download additional elements like the .NET frameworks. Delphi VCL apps also have an awe-inspiring backward compatibility and robustness where many application developers report decades of productive development and deployment experience in a wide variety of customer scenarios.

Assuming you’re not using any Windows version-specific features a Delphi VCL app will typically need zero changes to go from running on Windows 8.1 to Windows 11 – this is absolutely NOT true of almost any other application development technology including the majority of WPF-based apps.

Exciting Components of Delphi VCL

The major components of Delphi VCL are a subset of the component library which is Delphi’s way of offering ready-to-use encapsulated functionality in elements which can be dragged and dropped on an application’s forms in the RAD Studio IDE’s visual form designer. The little nuggets of ready-cooked code can also be instantiated/created in code too although it’s much easier to design screens visually.

The parameters and event-driven behavior can be set and controlled using the ‘object inspector’ which makes it as easy as a couple of clicks to set much of the required items. The raw speed of creating your application’s screens this way and reusing nicely encapsulated pre-written code is what helps RAD Studio justify the fact that “RAD” stands for Rapid Application Development. No need to create wireframes or mock-ups – the visual form designer is absolutely what you see is what you get.

Using the component library, you can use any form or data module feature and even manipulate them on design time. Delphi VCL also has an object inspector that is useful for assigning property values without coding.

Delphi VCL provides both visual and non-visual components, depending on the run time. Example visual components include TForm – an abstract of one of the application’s forms, and TTreeView – the type of control you’ve seen hundreds of times in the Windows Explorer, Microsoft apps and others.

Meanwhile, the non-visual components apply to a variety of tasks. You can use TDataSource components of a form to connect the dataset with the controls of an application. This feature is extremely helpful in connecting apps with the main database.

The VCL even uses icons to show non-visual components. Therefore, you can easily visually manipulate non-visual components’ properties and events. On Delphi VCL, using non-visual components is as easy as operating visual ones.

Uses of RAD Studio with Delphi VCL

You can use Delphi VCL to create and design different stages of app development. Delphi VCL provides you with:

• New and exciting VCL styles even for menu styling. You can use these styles to develop modern-looking apps for Windows.
• The new app tethering components allow you to extend Windows desktop applications with mobile companion apps.
• You can also add GPS, gyroscope, and accelerometer features to your Windows apps.
• FireDAC is a Universal Data Access library that is highly useful for app development on Windows. it directly connects you with enterprise databases and provides high-speed access without compromising the performance levels.
• Use the new Taskbar component to insert interactive taskbar previews during the app development process.
• Object inspector helps you edit published properties by displaying them on a form at design time.
• RAD Studio with Delphi also supports live bindings so that you can produce low-code or zero-code apps where you ‘wire’ the data sources to the visual screen elements and let the Delphi runtime do all the hard work for you without needing to write the reams of ‘CRUD’ create, read, update, delete code by hand.

How To Build Amazing Windows Apps With Delphi VCL?

Windows Presentation Foundation is alive, but we think you can do better. Comparing it with new and latest alternatives, it produces good results but with less efficiency. Therefore, you should use Delphi VCL to build applications. It uses modern and up to date features that simplify the development process and take it from app development to rapid application development. No additional runtimes or “DLL hell” versioning problems. A Delphi VCL app is a sound, robust choice and even sets you up with easily transferrable skills for you to use to create cross-platform apps using its companion UI framework – FireMonkey FMX so you can target not just Windows but also macOS, iOS, Android and Linux too, a future-proofing smart choice.

Want to try Delphi VCL for your next Windows application? Get a free 30-day license to try the RAD Studio and Delphi VCL to build modern Windows apps.

[1] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/the-reports-of-my-death-are-greatly-exaggerated#:~:text=The%20reports%20of%20my%20death%20are%20greatly%20exaggerated%20is%20a,rumors%20that%20he%20was%20dying.

[2] https://github.com/dotnet/wpf

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Windows Presentation Foundation

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Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), introduced in the .NET Framework 3.0, provides an alternative to Windows Forms (see Chapter 7) for the development of highly functional rich client applications. The WPF development model is radically different than that of Windows Forms and can be difficult to adjust to—especially for experienced Windows Forms developers. However, WPF is incredibly flexible and powerful, and taking the time to learn it can be lots of fun and immensely rewarding. WPF enables the average developer to create user interfaces that incorporate techniques previously accessible only to highly specialized graphics developers and take a fraction of the time to develop that they would have once taken.

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Windows Presentation Foundation

Framework for building windows desktop applications.

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a UI framework for building Windows desktop applications. WPF supports a broad set of application development features, including an application model, resources, controls, graphics, layout, data binding and documents. WPF uses the Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) to provide a declarative model for application programming. WPF applications are based on a vector graphics architecture. This enables applications to look great on high DPI monitors, as they can be infinitely scaled. WPF also includes a flexible hosting model, which makes it straightforward to host a video in a button, for example. The visual designer provided in Visual Studio makes it easy to build WPF application, with drag-in-drop and/or direct editing of XAML markup. WinForms is another UI framework for building Windows desktop applications that is supported on .NET (6.0.x/5.0.x/3.1.x). WPF and WinForms applications only run on Windows.

• WPF for ARM64 is new for .NET 6.0 and is supported by NET 6.0 Preview 1 and later
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