Click here to Skip to main content
15,891,905 members
Articles / Desktop Programming / WPF

WPF Control Composition (Part 2 of 2)

Rate me:
Please Sign up or sign in to vote.
4.86/5 (12 votes)
21 Mar 2012CPOL6 min read 44.8K   1.6K   36  
Theming an existing user control adds flexibilty at the application side without changing the original implementation. This article gives an example by theming a user control that was previously not fully themeable.
<UserControl x:Class="SimpleControls.ComboBox.ComboBoxWithLabel"
             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="100"
             d:DesignWidth="453"

             xmlns:local="clr-namespace:SimpleControls.ComboBox"
             >
  <Grid>
    <Grid.RowDefinitions>
      <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
      <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
    </Grid.RowDefinitions>
      <!-- This will bind the Content property on the label to the 'LabelContent' property on this control-->
    <Label Content="{Binding Path=LabelContent, RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType=local:ComboBoxWithLabel, AncestorLevel=1}}" 
                       HorizontalAlignment="Left" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" Grid.Row="0"/>

      <!-- This will bind the ItemsSource of the ComboBox to this control's ItemsSource property -->
    <ComboBox ItemsSource="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType=local:ComboBoxWithLabel, AncestorLevel=1}, Path=ItemsSource}"
                DisplayMemberPath="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType=local:ComboBoxWithLabel, AncestorLevel=1}, Path=DisplayMemberPath}"
                SelectedValuePath="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType=local:ComboBoxWithLabel, AncestorLevel=1}, Path=SelectedValuePath}"
                SelectedValue="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType=local:ComboBoxWithLabel, AncestorLevel=1}, Path=SelectedValue}"
                SelectedItem="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType=local:ComboBoxWithLabel, AncestorLevel=1}, Path=SelectedItem}"
                SelectedIndex="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType=local:ComboBoxWithLabel, AncestorLevel=1}, Path=SelectedIndex}"
                VerticalAlignment="Top" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"
                Grid.Row="1">
      </ComboBox>
      <!-- you can do the same thing with SelectedValuePath, DisplayMemberPath, etc, but this illustrates the technique -->
  </Grid>
</UserControl>

By viewing downloads associated with this article you agree to the Terms of Service and the article's licence.

If a file you wish to view isn't highlighted, and is a text file (not binary), please let us know and we'll add colourisation support for it.

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
Germany Germany
The Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and C# are among my favorites and so I developed Edi

and a few other projects on GitHub. I am normally an algorithms and structure type but WPF has such interesting UI sides that I cannot help myself but get into it.

https://de.linkedin.com/in/dirkbahle

Comments and Discussions