Programming WPF, 2nd Edition

Element-Typed Styles

Named styles are useful when you have a set of properties to be applied to a specific element instance. However, if you'd like to apply a style uniformly to all instances of a certain type of element, set the TargetType without a Key (see Example 8-13).

Example 8-13. Element-typed styles

...
<!-- without a Key -->
<Style TargetType="{x:Type Button}">
  <Setter Property="FontSize" Value="32pt" />
  <Setter Property="FontWeight" Value="Bold" />
</Style>
<!-- with a Key -->
<Style x:Key="StatusTextStyle" TargetType="{x:Type TextBlock}"
>
  <Setter Property="FontSize" Value="32pt" />
  <Setter Property="FontWeight" Value="Normal" />
  <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="White" />
  <Setter Property="HorizontalAlignment" Value="Center" />
</Style>
...
<!-- no need to set the Style -->
<Button Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" x:ID="cell00" />
...
<!-- need to set the Style -->
<TextBlock Style="{StaticResource StatusTextStyle}" ... />
...

In Element-Typed Styles, we have two styles, one with a TargetType of Button and no Key, and another with a TargetType of TextBlock and a Key. The TextBlock style works just as we've seen (i.e., you have to assign a TextBlock Style property explicitly to the style using the key for it to take effect). On the other hand, when an instance of Button is created without an explicit Style attribute setting, it uses the style that matches the target type of the style to the type of the control. Our element-typed styles return our game to looking again like ...