The Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) changes all this by introducing a new

model with entirely different plumbing. Although WPF includes the standard controls you’re

familiar with, it draws every text, border, and background fill itself. As a result, WPF can pro-

vide much more powerful features that let you alter the way any piece of screen content is

rendered. Using these features, you can restyle common controls such as buttons, often with-

out writing any code. Similarly, you can use transformation objects to rotate, stretch, scale,

and skew anything in your user interface, and you can even use WPF’s baked-in animation

system to do it right before the user’s eyes. And because the WPF engine renders the content

for a window as part of a single operation, it can handle unlimited layers of overlapping con-

trols, even if these controls are irregularly shaped and partially transparent.