Windows Presentation Foundation 4.5 Cookbook

Applying a style automatically

The previous recipe showed how to create styles that have a name (x:Key) and how to apply them. Sometimes, however, we would like a style to be applied automatically to all elements of a certain type, to give the application a consistent look. For example, we may want all buttons to have a font size of 14 by default (unless a specific button chooses a different value). This makes creating new buttons easier, as the developer/designer doesn't have to know what style to apply (if any) – if an automatic style has been configured it will be used automatically. Let's see how this is done.

Getting ready

Open the project CH08.StyledCalculator from the previous recipe. We'll modify it to use automatic styles. Alternatively, ...