Question

Currently, I’m working on a simple custom button that uses user supplied images as a background for the pressed and normal states. I’ve a lot of buttons so I decided to write a custom button and implement two properties for the pressed and normal states’ pictures.

Here is the code I’m using

public partial class ThemeableButton : Button
{
    public ThemeableButton()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }


    public static readonly DependencyProperty PressedContentBackgroundSourceProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
                    "PressedContentBackgroundSource", typeof(ImageSource), typeof(ThemeableButton), null);
    public ImageSource PressedContentBackgroundSource
    {
        get { return (ImageSource)GetValue(PressedContentBackgroundSourceProperty); }
        set
        {
            (value as BitmapImage).CreateOptions = BitmapCreateOptions.BackgroundCreation; 
            SetValue(PressedContentBackgroundSourceProperty, value);
        }
    }


    public static readonly DependencyProperty NormalContentBackgroundSourceProperty =
        DependencyProperty.Register("NormalContentBackgroundSource", typeof(ImageSource), typeof(ThemeableButton), null);

    public ImageSource NormalContentBackgroundSource
    {
        get { return (ImageSource)GetValue(NormalContentBackgroundSourceProperty); }
        set
        {
            (value as BitmapImage).CreateOptions = BitmapCreateOptions.BackgroundCreation;
            SetValue(NormalContentBackgroundSourceProperty, value);
        }
    }
}

I wrote the style for this button as follows

        <Style x:Key="ThemeableButtonTemplate" TargetType="MJbox_UIComponents_Controls:ThemeableButton">
        <Setter Property="Background" Value="Transparent"/>
        <Setter Property="BorderBrush" Value="{StaticResource PhoneForegroundBrush}"/>
        <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource PhoneForegroundBrush}"/>
        <Setter Property="BorderThickness" Value="{StaticResource PhoneBorderThickness}"/>
        <Setter Property="FontFamily" Value="{StaticResource PhoneFontFamilySemiBold}"/>
        <Setter Property="FontSize" Value="{StaticResource PhoneFontSizeMediumLarge}"/>
        <Setter Property="Padding" Value="0"/>
        <Setter Property="Template">
            <Setter.Value>
                <ControlTemplate TargetType="MJbox_UIComponents_Controls:ThemeableButton">
                    <Grid>
                        <VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>
                            <VisualStateGroup x:Name="CommonStates">
                                <VisualState x:Name="Normal">
                                    <Storyboard>
                                        <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="Source" Storyboard.TargetName="ButtonBackground">
                                            <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0" Value="{TemplateBinding NormalContentBackgroundSource}">
                                            </DiscreteObjectKeyFrame>
                                        </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
                                    </Storyboard>
                                </VisualState>
                                <VisualState x:Name="Pressed">
                                    <Storyboard>
                                        <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetProperty="Source" Storyboard.TargetName="ButtonBackground">
                                            <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="0" Value="{TemplateBinding PressedContentBackgroundSource}">
                                            </DiscreteObjectKeyFrame>
                                        </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
                                    </Storyboard>
                                </VisualState>
                            </VisualStateGroup>
                        </VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>
                        <Border BorderThickness="{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}" Background="{TemplateBinding Background}" CornerRadius="0">
                            <Image x:Name="ButtonBackground" Stretch="None" Source="{TemplateBinding NormalContentBackgroundSource}"/>
                        </Border>       
                    </Grid>
                </ControlTemplate>
            </Setter.Value>
        </Setter>
    </Style>

I tried a simple example

<Controls:ThemeableButton Style="{StaticResource ThemeableButtonTemplate}" x:Name="btnDidntNeedIt" NormalContentBackgroundSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource DefaultTheme}, Path=DidntHaveButtonUnselected}"
                                   PressedContentBackgroundSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource DefaultTheme}, Path=DidntHaveButtonSelected}"
         />

but the image is not showing, I tried by removing the TemplateBinding from the style and replaced it with the relative source to the image file and it worked fine. I just don’t wanna create a customized style for each button on the app. Any possible workaround?

Answer 1

I have encountered this before, TemplateBinding does not work for custom dependency properties on controls. See these related questions:

issues with template binding and binding of custom component

TemplateBinding does not work in certain cases(when using TranslateTransform)

I have always used this instead:

{Binding MyProperty, RelativeSource={RelativeSource TemplatedParent}}

It is semantically the same as TemplateBinding, and can also support value converters etc …