Creating and Consuming Resource Dictionaries in WPF and Silverlight

re: Creating and Consuming Resource Dictionaries in WPF and Silverlight

Aptbid2002 — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:33:05 GMT

Great article. I'm looking forward to building my first WPF app and this article has helped me understand more about using resources. Thanks.

re: Creating and Consuming Resource Dictionaries in WPF and Silverlight

karl140.6 — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:48:34 GMT

Bob,

Thank you for your kind words.

Want to be sure I understand your requirements.

You have an existing application, and you would like to be able to use one of the new themes, is that correct? You are looking for some guidance on how to plug the new theme into your application, correct?

Cheers,

Karl

re: Creating and Consuming Resource Dictionaries in WPF and Silverlight

Bob — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:48:00 GMT

Hi Karl,

Great post. Going through the steps I have a better feeling for how the resource dictionaries work. I'm looking at the 3 new Themes recently released that when opened in Blend as a project can be used to create a custom Theme. I like the organization and though its a bit overwhelming at first.. Forgive me for asking a possibly stupid question here, but what is the process to get from creating a new theme based on one of these 3 to using it in an application? I'm confused about which files to add to the application I want to apply the theme to and how to implicitly apply it to a large application.

Might you have a suggestion to complete that process? I'm having a difficult time finding this information.

Regards,

Bob

re: Creating and Consuming Resource Dictionaries in WPF and Silverlight

karl140.6 — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:37:36 GMT

Thank you for you kind remarks on Visual Studio and this post.

Have a great day,

Karl

re: Creating and Consuming Resource Dictionaries in WPF and Silverlight

raffaeu — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:33:41 GMT

This is the best post I ever seen about how to manage resources in WPF, and more than anything, it works like a charm!

Thanks a lot

re: Creating and Consuming Resource Dictionaries in WPF and Silverlight

karl140.6 — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:47:24 GMT

Radu,

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what problem you are having. I can see and apply resources merged in App.xaml, from any project within my solution using the Designer's Apply Resource dialog.

Do you have the Visual Studio 2010 RTM?

Do you have the lastest Silverlight 4 Tools for Visul Studio installed? New version on 5/13/2010. www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx

Do you have your resource dictionaries merged in App.xaml? In order for the Designer to "see" your resources, they MUST be merged in App.xaml or merged in the Page or UserControl that is consuming them.

Please let me know so I can try and help you, thank you,

Karl Shifflett

re: Creating and Consuming Resource Dictionaries in WPF and Silverlight

rlodina — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:29:35 GMT

Thank you for response.

My problem is:

How can I can see in my SL Class Library project (at design-time) resource defined in my main project (SL Business Application (App.xaml)) - all projects is in the same solution.

At run-time: resource defined on application level (App.xaml) it's available to all controls instantiated from my SL Class Library.

In my scenario (my VS solution contain):

1. SL Business Application - it's a container (provide common framework functionality to my app : logging, user notification, etc. and more important for this discution: simple theme selection - dynamically add/remove entry from Application.Current.Resources.MergedDictionaries.).

2. One or more WCF RIA Service Class Library - to keep things simple - one or more SL Class Library. Each of this library contain well defined task (there are my module (ex: Accounting, Warehouse, PR)) witch I load dynamically - based of user request. A functional app (SL4) can be found at demo.indecosoft.net user:demo, pass: demo

Now - in your above steps :

A. In step 4: Added a Resource Dictionary - add this resource dictionary in SL Business Application (your main SL project).

B. Change step 7 - to: <ResourceDictionary Source="Dictionary1.xaml" />

C. In SL Class Library project add a simple user control.

D. Apply SolidColorBrush resource defined on step A to user control defined in step C.

Have a nice day,

Radu Lodina

re: Creating and Consuming Resource Dictionaries in WPF and Silverlight

karl140.6 — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:09:43 GMT

Radu,

I was able to see the resources located in another project in the solution by following these steps:

1. Installed the latest SL Tools for VS from here:

2. Create a new SL Business Application

3. Added a new SL Class Library to the solution

4. Added a Resource Dictionary

5. Added a SolidColorBrush resource

6. In the main SL project, added a reference to the SL Class Library project

7. In App.xaml inside the <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> section I added

8. Open MainPage.xaml in the Designer. Select any control, using the properties window, find a brush property, then click on the property marker. The resource was visible for me.

If you can't get this to work in your project, please send me a link to the project so I can download it and have a look at it.

Have a nice day,

Karl Shifflett

re: Creating and Consuming Resource Dictionaries in WPF and Silverlight

rlodina — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 18:56:39 GMT

Hi,

Thank you for article.

Do you have some advice (recommendation) about using resource dictionary in a complex solution ex: Silverlight Business Application + one or more WCF RIA Service Class Library.

Right now, I am not be able to see - at design tine - resources (added in App.xaml : <Application.Resources> <ResourceDictionary> <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> ...) in Silverlight project of WCF RIA Class Library.

Thank you

Radu Lodina