Question

I’m building a WPF application, and I derived a bunch of controls from the standard WPF control types — textblocks, buttons, etc. I tried adding a resource dictionary to app.xaml to set the theme, but my custom controls don’t seem to be respecting it. (For example, standard Buttons take the Aero theme just fine, but a myButton derived from a Button is still lookless.) Is there a way I can set the theme for my derived controls to be the same as for the base controls?

EDIT: I should note that these custom controls are instantiated at runtime, so I can’t manipulate their properties directly via XAML. I can change particular properties like background color by using a Setter in the application resource dictionary, but haven’t found a way to set a theme using that technique.

Answer 1

If you have this style in a Resource Dictionary called Dictionary1.xaml

<ResourceDictionary xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
                    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml">
    <Style x:Key="MyButtonStyle"
           TargetType="{x:Type Button}" 
           BasedOn="{StaticResource {x:Type Button}}">
        <Setter Property="Width" Value="75" />
        <Setter Property="Height" Value="23" />
    </Style>
</ResourceDictionary>

Then you can set it on any button with this code behind

Uri resourceLocater = new Uri("/YourAssemblyName;component/Dictionary1.xaml", System.UriKind.Relative);
ResourceDictionary resourceDictionary = (ResourceDictionary)Application.LoadComponent(resourceLocater);
Style myButtonStyle = resourceDictionary["MyButtonStyle"] as Style;

Button button = new Button();
button.Style = myButtonStyle;