Updated June 2026

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

Class Duration

35 hours of live training delivered over 5 days.

Student Prerequisites

Familiarity with the fundamentals of C# and .NET, at the level of an introductory C#/.NET course
Developers without this background are welcome in the class, but the course moves quickly and they will likely find the pace quite challenging

Target Audience

This course is designed for developers building Windows desktop applications with WPF and C#. It suits teams starting new WPF projects on modern .NET as well as teams porting existing Windows Forms, MFC, or traditional Win32 applications to WPF.

Description

This course provides hands-on experience with Microsoft's premier UI framework for Windows desktop development. It teaches participants how to best utilize WPF for .NET 10 and .NET Framework 4.8.x, both for new projects and for porting existing Windows Forms, MFC, or traditional Win32 applications to the platform.

WPF remains a fully supported, actively developed part of modern .NET. The course covers the framework from the ground up - XAML, layout, the property and rendering architecture, input and commands, data binding, and the Model-View-ViewModel pattern - before moving into the deep customization features that set WPF apart: styles, triggers, control templates, custom controls, and the theme system, including the Fluent (Windows 11) theming introduced in .NET 9 and expanded in .NET 10.

Learning Outcomes

Understand the motivation behind WPF, its main features, and how a basic application fits together
Build user interfaces declaratively with XAML while keeping a clean separation of UI and procedural code
Choose between the built-in layout panels, create custom panels, and fine-tune layout with margin, padding, alignment, and transforms
Understand the framework architecture: Windows integration, the property system, and how WPF renders visual elements
Handle input with the WPF input architecture and consolidate event handlers using commands
Organize applications with a logical project structure, shared resources, styles, and triggers
Bind business objects to the UI, make objects binding-aware, and provide type conversions for binding expressions
Present collections with data templates, sorting, filtering, grouping, and hierarchical (parent/child) binding
Structure applications with the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern for better testability
Use WPF graphics support: shapes, geometries, fills, and special effects such as opacity and reflections
Redefine the appearance of built-in controls with control templates, triggers, and the Visual State Manager
Build reusable custom controls and integrate with the WPF theme system, including Fluent theming on modern .NET

Training Materials

Comprehensive courseware is distributed online at the start of class. All students receive a downloadable MP4 recording of the training.

Software Requirements

Windows 10 or Windows 11
Visual Studio 2026 (Community Edition or higher) with the .NET desktop development workload
.NET 10 SDK
.NET Framework 4.8.x Developer Pack (for the .NET Framework portions of the course)

Training Topics

Introduction

Motivation behind WPF and its main features
WPF on .NET 10 and .NET Framework 4.8.x
Primary tools and classes used to build WPF applications
How a basic WPF application fits together

Using XAML

Creating UI independently of procedural code
Clean separation of code and UI
XAML syntax and code-behind

Managing Layout

Choosing between the built-in layout panels
Creating custom panels
Fine-tuning layout with margin, padding, and alignment
Special effects through transforms such as rotation and scaling

Framework Architecture

How WPF integrates with the Windows operating system
The dependency property system and property value management
How WPF renders visual elements to the screen

Input Management

The WPF input architecture and routed events
Receiving input from child controls
Commands and consolidating event handlers across control types

Organizing Your Application

Developer and designer workflow integration
Separating designer assets into a logical project structure
Common property setters with WPF styles
Managing shared properties in resources
Visual interactivity with triggers

Data Binding: Basics

Connecting data to the UI
Binding controls to each other
Making business objects binding-aware
Type conversions for binding expressions

Data Binding: Collections and Hierarchies

Visualizing business objects with data templates
Managing collections of objects in the UI
Customizing display with sorting, filtering, and grouping
Binding to hierarchies of collections (parent/child)

Model-View-ViewModel

Separating UI and visualization from procedural logic
Structuring applications for better testability
Responsibilities of the model, view, and viewmodel

Graphics

Overview of WPF graphics capabilities: shapes and geometries
Creating custom shapes, fills, and special effects such as opacity and reflections in XAML
Designing visuals with the Visual Studio XAML designer and XAML Hot Reload

Control Templates: Basics

Redefining the visual appearance of existing controls
Retemplating the Button with a new visualization
Visual behavior with triggers and the Visual State Manager (VSM)

Control Templates: Beyond Buttons

Templating advanced controls: ListBox, Slider, TreeView, and Tab controls
Best practices for replacing supported templates
Providing new visualizations while maintaining procedural behavior

Custom Controls

Building reusable controls through composition and inheritance
Building a new control from scratch
Providing default styles for custom controls
Integrating with the WPF theme system, including the Fluent (Windows 11) theme and light, dark, and system theme modes on .NET 9 and later