WPF stands for Windows Presentation Foundation.
It is a UI framework that is resolution-independent and uses a vector-based rendering engine, built to take advantage of modern graphics hardware.
It simplifies modern UI development by providing a comprehensive set of application-development features that include Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), controls, data binding, layout, 2D and 3D graphics, animation, styles, templates, documents, media, text, and typography.
There are two implementations of WPF:
- .NET version (this guide):
An open-source implementation of WPF hosted on GitHub, which runs on .NET 5 or higher (including .NET Core 3.1). The XAML designer requires, at a minimum, Visual Studio 2019 version 16.8.
Even though .NET is a cross-platform technology, WPF isn't and only runs on Windows. - .NET Framework 4 version:
The .NET Framework implementation of WPF that's supported by Visual Studio 2019 and Visual Studio 2017.
.NET Framework 4 is a Windows-only version of .NET and is considered a Windows Operating System component. This version of WPF is distributed with .NET Framework. For more information about the .NET Framework version of WPF, see Introduction to WPF for .NET Framework.
