C# 4 and .NET 4

1016 ❘ ChaPTer 35 cOre wpf
With the XAML code, a simple Button element with the name button1 is defined:
Within the code-behind, a new Country object is instantiated that is assigned to the Content property of
button1:
public StyledButtonWindow()
{
InitializeComponent();
button1.Content = new Country
{
Name = "Austria",
ImagePath = "images/Austria.bmp"
};
}
After running the application, you can see that the DataTemplate is applied
to the Button because Country data type has a default template, as shown
in Figure 35-24.
Of course it is also possible to create a control template and use a data
template from within.
styling a listbox
code snippet TemplateDemo/StyledButtonWindow.xaml.cs
figure 35-24
Changing a style of a button or a label is a simple task. How about changing the style of an element that
contains a list of elements For example, how about changing a ListBox Again, a list box has behavior
and a look. It can display a list of elements, and you can select one or more elements from the list. For the
behavior, the ListBox class defines methods, properties, and events. The look of the ListBox is separate
from its behavior. The ListBox element has a default look, but you can change this look by creating a
template.
With a ListBox the ControlTemplate defines how the complete control looks, an ItemTemplate defines
how an item looks, and a DataTemplate defines the type that might be within an item.
For filling a ListBox with some items, the static class Countries returns a list of a few countries that will
be displayed:
public class Countries
{
public static IEnumerable GetCountries()
{
return new List
{
new Country { Name = "Austria", ImagePath = "Images/Austria.bmp" },
new Country { Name = "Germany", ImagePath = "Images/Germany.bmp" },
new Country { Name = "Norway", ImagePath = "Images/Norway.bmp" },
new Country { Name = "USA", ImagePath = "Images/USA.bmp" }
};
}
}
code snippet TemplateDemo/Countries.cs
Inside the code-behind file in the constructor of the StyledListBoxWindow1 class, the DataContext
property of the StyledListBoxWindow1 instance is set to the list of countries that is returned from the
method Countries.GetCountries(). (The DataContext property is a data binding feature discussed in
the next chapter.)
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