New version of Windows Presentation Foundation released
Microsoft released a new version of Windows Presentation Foundation, their next generation windows application UI framework. The new version will ship as part of the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1. Tim Sneath has a very long and detailed post of the features but I'll try and break down the major points and benefits for RIA developers.
I think the biggest news is that it will now be easier to deploy WPF applications because they're making a slimmed down version of the .NET Framework which is dubbed the "Client Profile". Instead of the ~50+ megs that you had to install to run WPF applications, you'll have a 25 megabyte runtime that will be easier to deploy and should help expand adoption. Using Visual Studio 2008 SP1 you can create WPF applications which specifically target the smaller Client Profile. For developers that means you can get some of the benefits of WPF without having to require the full .NET framework. In general that will make WPF applications easier to push out, easier to download and run for consumers, and expand the penetration of the framework.
They've also added some cool graphics enhancements. For instance you can actually use any Direct3D surface as a brush for WPF content. They made WPF and DirectX a lot tighter and that should make for some really spectacular effects. Another graphic enhancement is that the shader classes (which enable affects like blurs, drop shadows, and flares) are all going to be hardware accelerated. That will boost performance and make everything a lot smoother.
Other benefits include performance, some tweaking to XBAPs (browser-based WPF applications) that make the user experience better, new controls (including the Office Ribbon control) and adding ClickOnce support to Firefox.
It's almost too bad the release is buried under the title of a Service Pack. This is a significant release and in some ways make all of the additions and changes to WPF that will really help it shine. It still seems like long term the goal is to bring Silverlight and WPF closer together in some respects. This release shows that WPF isn't slowing down at all which means good things for Silverlight developers.