Question

I am trying to define common behaviours between windows in a WPF application, for example:
All dialogs need to have certain properties set a certain way and respond to the escape key in order to close.

Is there any way to inherit from a shared base class? The xaml kicks up a fuss every time I attemp this by including the namespace in the xaml.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Sounds like what you really want is a common style for your Windows, see here for a discussion around the topic: How to set default WPF Window Style in app.xaml?

If you still want to use a base window class, below works for me:

XAML:

<WpfApplication1:BaseWindow x:Class="WpfApplication1.Window1"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:WpfApplication1="clr-namespace:WpfApplication1">

    <StackPanel>
        <Button Content="Click me" />
    </StackPanel>

</WpfApplication1:BaseWindow>

Code behind:

using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Media;

namespace WpfApplication1
{
    public class BaseWindow : Window
    {
        public BaseWindow()
        {
            Background = Brushes.Red;
            KeyDown += (sender, e) => { if (e.Key == Key.Escape) Close(); };
        }
    }

    public partial class Window1 
    {
        public Window1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
    }
}