What a topic. WinFX is made up of Avalon and Indigo as well as other bits and bobs, and Avalon and Indigo are in tern both codenames for a new product that is being built. Avalon is the Windows Presentation Foundation and Indigo is the Windows Communication Foundation. Awfully confusing, even for Microsoft folk as I know of a certain individual on the team who refuses to call them anything other than Avalon and Indigo still.

 .NET Framework 3.0 (previously codenamed WinFX) is the main Application Programming Interface (API) in Windows Vista. WinFX is designed to give a new effect in Vista, as well as to give developers better and easier access to the previous and older Windows API. The WinFX Components as it is also known will contain the new .NET Framework 2.0, Windows Presentation Foundation (codename Avalon), Windows Communication Foundation (codename Indigo) as well as the Windows Workflow Foundation.

Update for 24th June 2006
WinFX has now been renamed to .NET Framework 3.0. Although a lot of people will still refer to it as WinFX, the new name will be shortly rolled out to the rest of the site.

 .NET Framework 2.0 is quite a wonderful technology for us developers. It’s a software development platform of which specialises in writing applications faster because you write less code as well as platform independence. .NET is a load of technologies, not just the Framework that are designed to help in fast development of Internet and intranet applications. In effect, it makes a developers life a lot easier because it reduces our code amongst other things.

 Avalon (Windows Presentation Foundation) is the integrated structural design for presenting user interface, documents and media in Windows Vista. It is the engine that powers the new Windows Aero effects, such as the transparency, the window effects and other cool visual features.

 Indigo (Windows Communication Foundation) is a group of .NET based technologies of which builds and maintains computer networks. It provides a whole new wave of infrastructure between computers; clients and servers as well as clients and clients working over the network better and more efficiently. The more advanced Web services support means much more secure, much more reliable networks and systems.

 Windows Workflow Foundation (WinWF, not WWF because that’s for cute little endangered animals like panda’s) is an extensive set of programming tools for building solutions on Windows Vista. Quite hard to explain, and to be honest, I’ve copied it off the first page of the website, but there’s plenty more to learn there if you want to check it out.