Custom buttons in silverlight - silverlight

Question

How can I create buttons like this in silverlight. Do I need expression blend for this.
Since I need to use the modified buttons at many places in my application, should I do it as a user control?

Answer 1

You don't need a UserControl for this, just a custom Button template as a style resource, which then you can reuse by setting the style on any Button instance.
While it's doable without Blend, I highly recommend you at least get the trial, it's a really really nice IDE for design / visual development!
Edit: As a little present here's a starting point :)
<Style x:Key="ButtonStyle1" TargetType="Button">
<Setter Property="Foreground" Value="#FFFFFFFF"/>
<Setter Property="Padding" Value="3"/>
<Setter Property="BorderThickness" Value="1"/>
<Setter Property="BorderBrush" Value="#FF000000"/>
<Setter Property="Template">
<Setter.Value>
<ControlTemplate TargetType="Button">
<Grid>
<VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>
<VisualStateGroup x:Name="CommonStates">
<VisualState x:Name="Normal"/>
<VisualState x:Name="MouseOver"/>
<VisualState x:Name="Pressed"/>
<VisualState x:Name="Disabled">
<Storyboard>
<DoubleAnimation Duration="0" To="0.4" Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity" Storyboard.TargetName="DisabledVisualElement"/>
</Storyboard>
</VisualState>
</VisualStateGroup>
<VisualStateGroup x:Name="FocusStates">
<VisualState x:Name="Focused">
<Storyboard>
<DoubleAnimation Duration="0" To="1" Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity" Storyboard.TargetName="FocusVisualElement"/>
</Storyboard>
</VisualState>
<VisualState x:Name="Unfocused"/>
</VisualStateGroup>
</VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>
<Border x:Name="Background" BorderBrush="{TemplateBinding BorderBrush}" BorderThickness="{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}">
<Border.Background>
<LinearGradientBrush EndPoint="0.5,1" StartPoint="0.5,0">
<GradientStop Color="#FF707070" Offset="0"/>
<GradientStop Color="#FF666666" Offset="0.49"/>
<GradientStop Color="#FF5e5e5e" Offset="0.51"/>
<GradientStop Color="#FF535353" Offset="1"/>
</LinearGradientBrush>
</Border.Background>
</Border>
<ContentPresenter x:Name="contentPresenter" ContentTemplate="{TemplateBinding ContentTemplate}" Content="{TemplateBinding Content}" HorizontalAlignment="{TemplateBinding HorizontalContentAlignment}" Margin="{TemplateBinding Padding}" VerticalAlignment="{TemplateBinding VerticalContentAlignment}">
<ContentPresenter.Effect>
<DropShadowEffect BlurRadius="3" ShadowDepth="2" Opacity="0.5"/>
</ContentPresenter.Effect>
</ContentPresenter>
<Rectangle x:Name="DisabledVisualElement" Fill="#FFFFFFFF" IsHitTestVisible="false" Opacity="0"/>
<Rectangle x:Name="FocusVisualElement" IsHitTestVisible="false" Margin="1" Opacity="0" Stroke="#FF6DBDD1" StrokeThickness="1"/>
</Grid>
</ControlTemplate>
</Setter.Value>
</Setter>
</Style>

Answer 2

You can do it without Blend by hand, but believe me, using Blend will give you a lot more power and you'll get more amazing results in the fraction of time you would need if you decided to do it all by yourself.

Answer 3

I'd definitely recommend Blend as it saves so much time when styling controls and creating templates.
However, if you're not set on having the buttons exactly the same as the image, there are several themes that you could use (such as JetPack) from which you could borrow the templates and amend the colours relatively easily in XAML.