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Programming WPF, 2nd Edition
book

Programming WPF, 2nd Edition

by Chris Sells, Ian Griffiths
August 2007
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
864 pages
25h 52m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Programming WPF, 2nd Edition

Control Templates

In addition to changing a control's look by manipulating properties, you can replace it with something completely different by setting a control's Template property.

In Example 1-35, we've decided that our Add button is a yellow ellipse, as shown in Figure 1-19.

Example 1-35. Replacing a control's look completely with a control template

<Button DockPanel.Dock="Bottom" x:Name="addButton" Content="Add">
  <Button.Template>
    <ControlTemplate TargetType="{x:Type Button}">
      <Grid>
        <Ellipse Width="128" Height="32" Fill="Yellow" Stroke="Black" />
        <ContentPresenter
          VerticalAlignment="Center" HorizontalAlignment="Center" />
      </Grid>
     </ControlTemplate>
  </Button.Template>
</Button>
A yellow ellipse button

Figure 1-19. A yellow ellipse button

The template of a control in WPF is what defines the look, whereas the code defines the behavior. The default template comes from the system-scope resources (as described in Chapter 12), but if you don't like that one, you can replace it with whatever you like, using a content presenter to drop in the content provided by the developer using your control. However, the behavior remains the same (e.g., if you click on the ellipse-shaped button in Figure 1-19, a Click event is still fired). We explore in detail the power of replacing the look of a control in Chapter 9.

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780596510374Supplemental ContentErrata Page