WPF Tutorial: WPF Development Tools

There are a number of development tools available for developing Windows Presentation Foundation applications. Microsoft provides two development tools for WPF applications. One is Visual Studio, made for developers and the other is Expression Blend made for designers. While Visual Studio is good in code and XAML editing, Expression Blend covers the graphical part very well.

Microsoft tools 

• Microsoft Visual Studio is a developer-oriented IDE that contains a combination XAML editor and WPF visual designer, beginning with Visual Studio 2008.

Download Microsoft Visual C# 2012 - Express Edition

• Microsoft Expression Blend is a designer-oriented tool that provides an artboard for the creation of WPF applications with 2D and 3D graphics, text and forms content. It generates XAML that may be exported into other tools and shares solution (sln files) and project formats (csproj, vbproj) with Microsoft Visual Studio. 

Third party tools

• SharpDevelop includes powerful WPF application design abilities. It is a free alternative to the commercial Microsoft Visual Studio IDE. 
• Kaxaml is an open source WPF designer with a XAML auto-complete editor. It provides a split screen for viewing both the XAML and the rendered UI. It also offers a plug-in model and contains a color picker, code snippet, screen capture and XAML scrubber plug-ins. 
• Sybase PowerBuilder .NET is a 4GL tool that translates PowerBuilder code, graphical objects to XAML and allows deploying the application as a WPF target.