XAML Development Tools

Microsoft Visual Studio & Microsoft Expression Blend

Create engaging user interfaces for Windows Desktop Applications with Blend for Visual Studio, the premier professional design tool for XAML applications. Build beautiful transitions and visualizations using Blend’s full suite of vector drawing tools, powerful template editing features, real-time animation, visual state management and more.

Download Visual Studio

WPF Inspector

WPF Inspector is a utility that attaches to a running WPF application to troubleshoot common problems with layouting, databinding or styling. WPF Inspector allows you to explore a live view of the logical- and visual tree, read and edit property values of elements, watch the data context, debug triggers, trace styles and much more.

Download WPF Inspector from Codeplex

Snoop

Snoop is an open source tool available which allows you to browse the visual tree of a running WPF application without the need for a debugger and change properties.

Download WPF Snoop from GitHub

WPF Performance Suite

The Windows SDK includes a suite of performance profiling tools for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) applications called the WPF Performance Suite. The WPF Performance Suite enables you to analyze the run-time behavior of your WPF applications and determine performance optimizations that you can apply. The WPF Performance Suite includes performance profiling tools called Perforator and Visual Profiler. This topic describes how to install and use the Perforator and Visual Profiler tools in the WPF Performance Suite.