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Asked: 2026-05-11T07:55:44+00:00

This question is inspired by this recent question and other situations I’ve encountered in

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This question is inspired by this recent question and other situations I’ve encountered in my WPF development. How do I know whether it is enough to set a style on a control to override some default behavior vs creating a new control template?

More concretely, in the question above, the author wants to change the look of a ListBoxItem when it is selected. (See code reprinted below). Everything works, except the Background property. How is one supposed to know that they should override the Control Template for this?

<Style TargetType='{x:Type ListBoxItem}'>         <Setter Property='Content' Value='{Binding Path=Name}'/>         <Setter Property='Margin' Value='2'/>         <Style.Triggers>             <Trigger Property='IsSelected' Value='True'>                 <Setter Property='FontWeight' Value='Bold'/>                 <Setter Property='FontSize' Value='18'/>                 <Setter Property='Background' Value='Yellow'/>                 <Setter Property='Foreground' Value='Red'/>             </Trigger>         </Style.Triggers>      </Style>
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1 Answer

  1. Styles can be thought of very closely to CSS styles in HTML. If all you want to do is change the basic properties of a control such as Background, Foreground or whatever properties it exposes then a Style is exactly what you need. Styles also allow you to apply triggers so for animations, a style is also sufficient.

    If you’re finding you want to change the intrinsice behaviours / inner workings on a control then a control template is what you want. For example, if you want to change how a button is laid out by adding some sort of grid behaviour, then using a control template is the way forward.

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