Button and Cursor Design / WPF Controls (Windows Presentation Foundation Controls & WPF Components) / Microsoft (Tools & Add-ins, Controls & Components)

What is WPF? WPF stands for Windows Presentation Foundation and is part of the Microsoft .NET Framework that helps you create Windows based forms inside your application on Windows based PCs and servers. (When Microsoft were developing WPF it was also known as project Avalon). The WPF technology can be viewed as the next step on from Windows Forms or WinForms by Microsoft and provides support for vector graphics, as such WPF apps can produce a better look and feel, particularly for high-definition imaging and graphics applications, than traditional Windows Forms. WPF is not aimed at Web site & Intranet developers as Microsoft has another .NET Technology called Silverlight. WPF is aimed at desktop app developers.

What is a WPF Control? A WPF control is a reusable software component that you can add you your WPF form to enable the user to control the application, enter data and display data on their screen at run-time. A WPF control is a piece of code that has been pre-built by another WPF developer or third party WPF controls creator that can be easily added to your WPF based app to extend the functionality fast. For example, you will find complex Gantt scheduling WPF controls on our Web site for you to add resource scheduling, planning and timetabling functionality to your WPF program, without you needing to develop and support all those basic WPF scheduling controls.

What is a WPF Component? WPF components are different from WPF controls in that they can be non-visual and can to be running hidden in the background of your app. WPF controls are a subset of WPF components, so all WPF controls are also WPF components, but not all WPF components are visible to the user. For example, you can get a WPF data compression component that runs in the background compressing and decompressing the size of data files using common data compression techniques such as ZIP, but this WPF component and its activity is not visible to the user.

In this filtered view of our complete .NET component product catalog, you will find a WPF controls gallery and also some WPF components that you can download, compare, review, try and buy, to add to your WPF app. The Windows Presentation Foundation area of the market is rapidly expanding, so if you wish to find all the latest WPF News about third party WPF products, then subscribe to our WPF News RSS feed to keep up to date.

The Microsoft software platform provides Microsoft developers with an array of Microsoft tools to create solutions for their customers and end users. The Microsoft applications that programmers develop can be created using the MS Visual Studio range of Microsoft development tools, including: MS Visual Basic; MS Visual C# (C-sharp); MS Visual C++ (C Plus Plus), as well as older MS dev languages and MS IDEs, such as MS Visual FoxPro. MS Visual Studio, the Microsoft .NET Framework and the more mature Microsoft COM platform can be extended to provide additional functionality to help MS developers create solutions faster. For example, there is a Microsoft add-in model that allows a Microsoft tool to be extended by other third-party companies, as long as they comply with the Microsoft addin model. As a result you can get a Microsoft extension for Visual Studio to refactor your Visual Basic code to make it easier to read or maintain and to speed up your coding by helping with code layout.  Many Visual Studio add-ins are available, including add ins to do C# code generation for you, giving you a faster way to create an application from scratch.

Microsoft Visual Studio software can also be extended beyond the Microsoft controls and Microsoft components that are supplied within the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (VS IDE) to give additional functionality. You can get Microsoft .NET components from companies that specialize in writing Internet communications components or eCommerce components that can be programmed like any other Microsoft component and save you a vast amount of time and money in programming your next Microsoft project. Or you can get an advanced Microsoft control for charting that enables you to draw many more styles of charts and graphs than are available inside the standard Microsoft controls in Visual Studio. These Microsoft components are available in many different forms as: Microsoft DLLs or as a Microsoft library, or as a Microsoft ActiveX or COM component supporting the COM object model or for the .NET Framework as Microsoft WinForms controls or ASP.NET controls, or as Microsoft WPF controls for Windows Presentation Foundation applications or as Silverlight controls for Microsoft Silverlight developers to use.

In this Microsoft marketplace you will find lots of different MS UI controls, as well as non-visual components, Microsoft utilities and Microsoft plug-ins to help you program in Microsoft Visual Basic, Visual C++ & Visual C#. You will also find Microsoft visual tools written by ISVs that can be used by MS Access developers or by MS Office programmers as Office components to be embedded inside their MS VBA or VSTO apps. There are also SharePoint tools and SharePoint Web Parts for MOSS bases apps being created by SharePoint developers. Plus for SQL Server you will find Microsoft utility products that allow you to access or bind to your data sources, compare data, manage your data, backup your data efficiently and much more. There are over 1,800 commercial products compatible with Microsoft software shown here in this Microsoft product gallery and many come with free downloads or free software trials for you to use listed in our Microsoft downloads product pages.