Question

I’m new to WPF and I’m trying to create an UserControl which will have some nested content.

<my:InformationBox Header="General Information" Width="280">
    <StackPanel>
        <Label>Label1</Label>
        <Label>Label2</Label>
    </StackPanel>
</my:InformationBox>

As you can see I want to put a StackPanel into it. As I read some articles I am supposed to add ContentPresenter to my UserControl, so I did, but I cannot find what should be binded to it’s Content property.

Here is my UserControl code

<UserControl x:Class="ITMAN.InformationBox"
             xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
             xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" 
             xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" 
             mc:Ignorable="d" 
             d:DesignHeight="200" d:DesignWidth="280" Name="infoBox" Loaded="infoBox_Loaded">
    <StackPanel Width="{Binding ElementName=infoBox, Path=Width}" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch">
        <Label Content="{Binding ElementName=infoBox, Path=Header}" />
        <Border BorderThickness="0,1,0,0" Padding="10 5" Margin="5 0 5 10" BorderBrush="#B4CEDE">
            <StackPanel>
                <ContentPresenter Content="{Binding Content}" />
                <Label Content="End" />
            </StackPanel>
        </Border>
    </StackPanel>
</UserControl>

I’ve tried many combinations from various articles, but I cannot find any working example of what I want to achieve.

Similiar question was asked earlier by another user, but given there answers didn’t help me: Does anyone have a simple example of a UserControl with a single ContentPresenter?

Answer 1

I solved this problem by applaying custom style to GroupBox. I’ve created Syle in ResourceDictionary, which looks as follows

<Style x:Key="InformationBoxStyle" TargetType="GroupBox">
    <Setter Property="Template">
        <Setter.Value>
            <ControlTemplate TargetType="GroupBox">
                <Grid>
                    <Grid.RowDefinitions>
                        <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
                        <RowDefinition Height="*"/>
                    </Grid.RowDefinitions>
                    <Label>
                        <ContentPresenter Margin="4" ContentSource="Header"
                               RecognizesAccessKey="True" />
                    </Label>
                    <Border Grid.Row="1" BorderThickness="0,1,0,0" Padding="10 5"
                               Margin="5 0 5 10" BorderBrush="#B4CEDE">
                        <StackPanel>
                            <ContentPresenter />
                        </StackPanel>
                    </Border>
                </Grid>
            </ControlTemplate>
        </Setter.Value>
    </Setter>
</Style>

And applied this style to GroupBox

<GroupBox Header="General Information" Width="280" Style="{StaticResource InformationBoxStyle}">
    <StackPanel>
        <Label>Label1</Label>
        <Label>Label2</Label>
    </StackPanel>
</GroupBox>

This code works as expected

You may also refer to this great article, which shows different options to achieve it:
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/82464/How-to-Embed-Arbitrary-Content-in-a-WPF-Control
It also describes why ContentPresenter doesn’t work in my code.