Highlights:  

• New Controls – We have numerous new controls in this release of Ribbon such as, RibbonGallery, RibbonComboBox, RibbonMenuButton, RibbonSplitButton, QuickAccessToolbar, etc.
• MVVM – Ribbon now facilitates MVVM-centric applications
• KeyTips – The new Ribbon now implements this new accessibility feature to allow full control using the keyboard
• Resizing – Our resizing approach has come a long way since the CTP version.  We have default logic that resizes controls inside the Ribbon to render the best visual appearance and orientation
• Design-time – This release includes design-time support for Visual Studio 2010 and Expression Blend 4. This includes a project template for a ‘WPF Ribbon Application’, an item template for a ‘Ribbon Window’, and Ribbon controls in the toolbox such as, RibbonButton, RibbonToggleButton, RibbonMenuButton, etc.

Documentation:

• MSDN Documentation

Community:

• Pete Brown’s Blog

• Combinatorial Variation Generation API - added supports for generics and declarative models (attribute-based models)
• Fault Injection API - for .NET 4.0 binaries
• Text String Generation API - added the support for string generation for multiple UnicodeRanges

The new release can be downloaded here.  Please send your feedback and share your thoughts for APIs that you'd like to see included in future releases.   

• Download a full trial version here or buy it here, and
• Watch live videos here.  
• To view a list of features supported by various VS versions, go here. 

A few performance related blog posts by Jossef, the WPF performance PM:

• What’s new in .NET Framework 4 Client Profile RTM
• What’s New for Performance in WPF in .NET 4

Windows Phone Developer Tools includes:

• Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone
• Windows Phone Emulator
• Silverlight for Windows Phone
• XNA Game Studio 4.0 CTP

A few good resources:

• Windows Phone Developer Portal
• Getting Started Guide for Developing for Windows Phone
• Code Samples for Windows Phone
• Windows Phone 7 Developer Training Kit

• Managed code fault injection API
• Combinational variation generation API
• New application control API
• Visual verification additions
• Acceptance tests
• New samples
• New namespace and binary naming
• Updated documentation

The release can be downloaded from here as a zip file and don't forget to follow these steps to unblock the downloaded zip file before you unzip it. 

The mastermind behind this initiative, Ivo Manolov, also has a series very good blog posts for more details about the new APIs:

• Part 1: Input Injection APIs
• Part 2: Command-Line Parsing APIs
• Part 3: Visual Verification APIs
• Part 4: Combinatorial Variation Generation APIs

Please send your feedback, comments, thoughts and suggestion to wpftbest@microsoft.com or post them at the TestApi forum.  Thanks!

This release includes several new additions and updates:

1.       Suggested Roadmap – updated to include new topics based on different persona

2.       Performance and Scalability Testing – updated with a few new resources recommended by our WPF perf leads

3.       Integration and Scenario Testing – a new article outlines the strategies and the steps to take in Integration and Scenario testing.  Contributors: Nathan Anderson, Ranjesh Jaganathan, and Lester Lobo

4.       TestApi  (Tools) – updated with summary of the new APIs from TetsApi v0.2 as well as sample usages.  Contributor: Ivo Manolov

5.       Tools – various new additions and updates to commonly used tools.  Contributor: Alexis Roosa

6.       A1 Building a WPF Application Test Suite by Using VSTS, NUnit, or xUnit – a new article summarized the common unit testing frameworks including sample test code and key resources.  Contributor: Ivo Manolov

7.    A4 Considerations for WPF Browser Applications – a new valuable write-up with common considerations in XBap apps.  Contributor: Matt Galbraith

Please take a moment to check out the Guide especially the new additions and updates, and let us know your thoughts.  Got some ideas about making it more valuable to our customers?  Thinking about contributing to the Guide?  We would love to hear from  you!

• AutomatedApplication API for in- and out-of-process application control
• New Visual Verification features
• New Command-Line Parser features
• xUnit and NUnit samples to complement Visual Studio unit testing samples

The ZIP package contains:

• Binaries
• Documentation (conceptual documents and API documentation)
• Source Code
• Samples

Please check it out!  Send your feedback and your desired feature list to the team, who have been working diligently to deliver the features and looking forward to hearing from you!  Thanks! 

While taking short breaks, I've noticed a few blog posts about finding managed memory leaks in WPF as well as Silverlight applications, some have very detailed steps for locating and debugging the memory leaks, some also introduced samples and tools, I found them quite useful and interesting:

• Finding Memory Leaks in WPF-based applications - by WPF Performance team (our PM Jossef Goldberg).  This post provided detailed steps in finding the leaks with sample apps, cause analysises and suggested fixes
• Where's your leak at? [Using WinDbg, SOS, and GCRoot to diagnose a .NET memory leak] - by Silverlight dev David Anson, it has a few good links and a very interesting sample
• Tracking down managed memory leaks (how to find a GC leak) - by Rico Mariani, it offers very detailed steps to follow in diagnosing memory leaks

 Techniques and Tools:

• SOS: finding the method bound to an EventHandler with WinDbg - by Mark Smith
• WinDbg, a core part of the Debugging Tools for Windows
• CLR Profiler for .NET Framework 2.0 and How To Use CLR Profiler

Other useful resources:

• Simulating Weak Delegates for EventHandler-like Delegates - by Ian Griffiths
• Simulating "Weak Delegates” in the CLR - by Greg Schechter
• Updated WPFPerf Performance Profiling Tools for WPF - by WPF Performance team

This release includes several new topics and updates:

1.       Suggested Roadmap – updated to include new topics

2.       Data-Driven Testing – a new article about the data-driven testing practice.  Contributor: Ivo Manolov from Microsoft WPF Team

3.       Globalization and Localization Testing – updated w/ more details including creating localizable UI layouts in WPF and approaches to localizing WPF applications.  Contributor: Alik Khavin from Microsoft WPF Team

4.       Stability and Stress Testing – a new article about stress testing principles, best practices, and useful resources.  Contributor: Alexis Roosa from Microsoft WPF Team

5.       Accessibility Testing – a new article about accessibility considerations, best practices and key resources.  Contributors: Tim Cowley from Microsoft WPF Team, Masahiko Kaneko from Microsoft Windows, Anne Gao from Microsoft WPF Team

6.       Tools / TestAPI – a brief intro about the newly released TestAPIs.  Contributor: Ivo Manolov from Microsoft WPF Team

Please take a moment to check out the Guide especially the new content and updates, let us know any feedback and suggestions, helping us

to make this Guide better!

Happy Holidays!

WPFStressTest.zip