Question

I know how to create a custom user control in WPF but how can I make it so that someone can provide an ItemTemplate?

I have a user control that is a mixture of several other WPF controls, one of them being a ListBox. I’d like to let the user of the control specify the content of the list box but I’m not sure how to pass that information through.

EDIT: The accepted answer works with the following correction:

<UserControl x:Class='WpfApplication6.MyControl'     xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation'     xmlns:x='http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml'     xmlns:src='clr-namespace:WpfApplication6'>     <ListBox ItemTemplate='{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType={x:Type src:MyControl}}, Path=ItemsSource}' /> </UserControl> 

Answer 1

You will want to add a DependencyProperty to your control. The xaml will look slightly different if you are deriving from UserControl or Control.

public partial class MyControl : UserControl {     public MyControl()     {         InitializeComponent();     }      public static readonly DependencyProperty ItemTemplateProperty =         DependencyProperty.Register('ItemTemplate', typeof(DataTemplate), typeof(MyControl), new UIPropertyMetadata(null));     public DataTemplate ItemTemplate     {         get { return (DataTemplate) GetValue(ItemTemplateProperty); }         set { SetValue(ItemTemplateProperty, value); }     } } 

Here is xaml for a UserControl.

<UserControl x:Class='WpfApplication6.MyControl'     xmlns='http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation'     xmlns:x='http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml'     xmlns:src='clr-namespace:WpfApplication6'>     <ListBox ItemTemplate='{Binding ItemTemplate, RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType={x:Type src:MyControl}}}' /> </UserControl> 

Here is xaml for a Control:

<Style TargetType='{x:Type src:MyControl}'>     <Setter Property='Template'>         <Setter.Value>             <ControlTemplate TargetType='{x:Type src:MyControl}'>                 <Border Background='{TemplateBinding Background}'                         BorderBrush='{TemplateBinding BorderBrush}'                         BorderThickness='{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}'>                      <ListBox ItemTemplate='{TemplateBinding ItemTemplate}' />                 </Border>             </ControlTemplate>         </Setter.Value>     </Setter> </Style>