WPF controls get their default styles, colors and brushes from a theme (Usually, in PresentationFramework.Aero.dll).
What piece of loads this assembly? And where are the resource dictionary stored?
I have my own WPF custom themes and load them in the Application.Current.Resources.MergedDictionary.
However, this does not work if the WPF themed control is hosted in Windows Forms since Application.Current is null.
Is there a way to do something similar to what WPF does? If so, what is it?
You cannot use the WPF themes in Winforms because they are two different technologies. There isn't a similar theme mechanism in Winforms natively. You can use third-party controls that support themes in Winforms. The most notable of these are the tools from Infragistics and Telerik.
Bottom line answer is no, there isn't.
Can you try just adding the theme to the control instead of the Application?
control.Resources.MergedDictionaries.Clear();
control.Resources.MergedDictionaries.Add(resourceDictionary);
(answering my own question)
The way to load a resource dictionary as a theme is to add it to the list of merged dictionaries of the generic.xaml resource dictionary.
There is no other way to load a resource dictionary as a theme.
This works fine when used from WinForms
Related
I am creating a set of controls that I wish to use in both a Silverlight and Windows Phone deployment. The core controls are contained within a WP7 class library, which can be used by both deployments. I then have platform specific controls contained in further WP7 and Silverlight libraries.
For the shared controls, I need to define a different default style for each platform. From what I've been reading the generic.xaml needs to be in the same assembly as the controls it's styling.
How would I approach this to be able to define a resource for a control in my WP7 assembly, and another resource for the same control in my Silverlight assembly while the control itself is in another shared assembly?
Adding the generic.xaml from my assembly into the App.Resources works fine. Works in the App.xaml and by programatically adding the merged resource dictionary.
I have a control and i put its template in generic.xaml.
is it possible to have other themes like:
bluesky.xaml
tealocean.xaml
How would I do this? How would the themes get changed?
The best currently available way is to use Theme control from a silverlight control toolkit to dynamically change themes.
Here is an article on this: http://weblogs.asp.net/lduveau/archive/2010/05/31/dynamically-apply-and-change-theme-with-the-silverlight-toolkit.aspx
My understanding of the difference between a WPF theme and a WPF skin is the following:
A WPF skin is a set of resources loaded by an application.
A WPF theme is a set of resources handled by the OS.
To load a skin, I can just call Application.Current.Resources.MergedDictionaries.Add (mySkin);
However, I don't see any way to load a theme.
Is this documented or available?
Should I access the System.Windows.SystemResources internal class?
You can load them as a ResourceDictionary:
<Window
x:Class=”TestProject.Window1?
xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation”
xmlns:x=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml”>
<Window.Resources>
<ResourceDictionary
Source=”/presentationframework.aero;component/themes/aero.normalcolor.xaml” />
</Window.Resources>
</Window>
Note: You would need to have a reference to the PresentationFramework.Aero.dll.
There's quite a subtle difference between Skins and Themes, and the reason why you're having problems with what you're trying to do might stem from this:
In WPF, a theming and skinning takes
on slight variations to their
meanings. Theming refers to
controlling the look and consistency
of an application UI to match the
operating system. For example, a WPF
application can be themed for the
Windows Aero theme or the Windows
Classic Theme. Skinning refers to
changing the application's appearance.
In other words, applying or letting
the user pick a skin to change the
look and feel of the application.
Robby Ingrebertsen, while working on
the WPF team, simplifies it as
follows:
Around here, we generally say that "theming" refers to the system theme
and "skinning" refers to changes to a specific app. This has helped to
clarify our internal communication
From here
So essentially, if you want your app to look like one of the Windows themes,ie the current windows theme - you don't have to set any styles in your app and it'll chose a pre-defined XAML skin that resembles it automatically. But, if you want to style your application, you make a skin for the app as you're doing.
As far as loading the Windows themes, this answer might help
(Answering my own question)
The way to load a resource dictionary as a theme is to add it to the list of merged dictionaries of the generic.xaml resource dictionary.
I've just begun dabbling in putting together a set of controls as assemblies and I'm working on default styling. What I currently have is a UserControl in a project (thanks Reed!) and I'm able to bring that into another project via reference. I plan to add more controls over time to build something of an SDK.
I currently have some hooks that look for resources in the hosting application which either apply the resources to their respective properties, or style out the control via hard coded defaults.
Is it possible to set up resource dictionaries within the project containing the UserControls so they can use those references as the default, instead of hard coding? If so, how do I target them?
(I have a ResourceDictionary set up within the same project as the controls: Resources>Dictionaries>Colors.xaml)
Thanks in advance!
E
You should really look at creating custom templated controls in library rather than derivatives of UserControls. This will allow projects that reference your library to specify an alternative default style for you controls in the same way as we can for the controls in Microsofts own SDK.
The Creating a New Control by Creating a ControlTemplate topic on MSDN is good starter.
I think this is a better explanation, but i'm trying on a desktop application and i got the same problem.
XamlParseException: Failed to create a 'System.Type' from the text 'local:CustomerEntity'
If I'm undestanding correctly you want to create the file "generic.xaml" in the folder "Themes". However, I don't believe automatic styling works with UserControl only with Control. Generally if you trying to make a control that can be stylized and retemplated you want to inherit from Control and not UserControl.
Where to find Generic.xaml (or other code with the default look) for native WPF controls such as Button, CheckBox, TextBox, etc?
In Silverlight (and I know that your question is about WPF) this information is more accessible than in WPF. You can get this information from any of these sources:
Control Styles and Templates on MSDN.
You can look at the resources of the relevant Silverlight assembly and extract the themes/generic.xaml embedded in a resource. I use Reflector to do this.
You can extract the control template of a specific control using a tool. I use Expression Blend to do this. This also works for WPF.
Unfortunately the XAML for native controls is not directly available as a file. You need to use a program for peeking into the WPF assemblies and extracting that info. I personally have used the Mole for Visual Studio tool, which has done the job very well. It integrates as a debugger-visualiser, which is quite handy.