Why can't I move my resource dictionary in Silverlight? - silverlight

Question

For some reason the following code is giving me an exception.
<Application.Resources>
<ResourceDictionary>
<ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
<ResourceDictionary Source="/PPCa.Common.Infrastructure;component/Skins/Default.xaml"/>
<ResourceDictionary>
<app:ResourceWrapper x:Key="ResourceWrapper" />
<app:NotOperatorValueConverter x:Key="NotOperatorValueConverter" />
</ResourceDictionary>
</ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
</ResourceDictionary>
</Application.Resources>
Here is the exception:
System.Windows.Markup.XamlParseException occurred
Message=Failed to assign to property 'System.Windows.ResourceDictionary.Source'. [Line: 11 Position: 44]
LineNumber=11
LinePosition=44
StackTrace:
at System.Windows.Application.LoadComponent(Object component, Uri resourceLocator)
InnerException:
Line 11 is this:
<ResourceDictionary Source="/PPCa.Common.Infrastructure;component/Skins/Default.xaml"/>
Am I somehow merging my dictionaries wrongly?

Answer 1

Why is no one answering my questions? Am I blacklisted or something. People used to help me out quite a bit more. Anyway, I discovered my problem. The exception was a red herring. The problem had nothing to do with my application resource definition. The problem I was having deep inside my resource dictionaries. I was merge-referencing a dictionary inside my dictionary that no longer existed. That was difficult to figure out.

Answer 2

Are these dictionaries in the same XAP? If so, a relative path should work. I have used all relative paths to merge in dictionaries without any issue. Here is an example of mine:
<Application.Resources>
<ResourceDictionary x:Name="appDictionary">
<ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
<ResourceDictionary x:Name="ControlStylesDictionary"
Source="Resources/Styles/ControlStyles.xaml" />
<ResourceDictionary x:Name="MenuStylesDictionary"
Source="Resources/Styles/MenuStyles.xaml" />
</ResourceDictionary>
</Application.Resources>
That is the only difference I can see in your XAML.

Answer 3

If the dictionary is in another XAP, you need to download the XAP and load the dictionary from there.

Answer 4

I ran into the same problem, same generic error message and found the solution. This appears to be a bug IMHO.
I am building an app for .Net, SL5, WP7.1. To do this I put the code in the .Net app and add source links for the other projects. Works great.
My main app projects are called MyApp.Net, MyApp.SL, and MyApp.WP. However, I make the default namespace and project output for these projects simply MyApp. Again, works great as it should.
I place my resources in projects MyApp.Resources.Net, MyApp.Resources.SL, and MyApp.Resources.WP. There is a bit of a glitch with using the VS source links as Expression Blend wants direct access to the physical files and gets confused when (for example) the MyApp.Resources.WP project contains a source link to a MyStyles.xaml file in the MyApp.Resources.Net projects. Therefore, all my resource projects actually contain physical files. This works fine also, I just have to synch the files manually. No problems so far.
However, for my resource projects I change the namespace and output files to MyApp.Resources. This keeps my application code simple also, regardless the platform it's built for, the namespace is the same.
Yes, I know this is a bit complicated but it allows me to build for 3 platforms (technically 5 if you include Blendability and UnitTesting) all with the same code base.
To continue, if I create a ResourceDictionary as such
<ResourceDictionary Source="/MyApp.Resources;component/Styles/TextStyles.xaml"/>
I get the Failed to assign to property 'System.Windows.ResourceDictionary.Source' etc...
In short, I discovered that if the assembly name contains a '.' this error shows up. For example if I change my project names to simply 'Resources' it works fine. Or if I leave my projects with their default build names of 'MyApp.Resources.WP' it also works fine.
This has nothing to do with changing my resource dll output file names, I change them all day long and it works great, but if they contain a '.' I get the above error. For example, I can change the output name to "MyAppResourceThatWorks" (leaving the project name as MyApp.Resources.WP and load it in App.xaml with
<ResourceDictionary Source="/MyAppResourceThatWorks;component/Styles/TextStyles.xaml"/>
Works great. Change the output name to "MyAppResourcesThatDoNot.Work" and load it with
<ResourceDictionary Source="/MyAppResourceThatDoNot.Work;component/Styles/TextStyles.xaml"/>
Fails.
Yes, I tried changing the assembly properties, etc. etc. It's a load issue with Pack Uri's.