#177 – A Content Presenter Is a Placeholder for a Content Control’s Content

A content control (ContentControl) in WPF is a control that displays a single piece of content.  The control will have a control template (Template property) that describes the specific visual elements that make up the control.  Somewhere in that control template will be a content presenter (ContentPresenter), which indicates the spot in the control to display the actual content.

You can think of the ContentPresenter as a little pointer that says “put your content here”.

Below is the default control template for a Label control as an example.  The control template includes a ContentPresenter inside a Border.

<ControlTemplate TargetType="{x:Type Label}">
    <Border BorderBrush="{TemplateBinding BorderBrush}" BorderThickness="{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}" Background="{TemplateBinding Background}" Padding="{TemplateBinding Padding}" SnapsToDevicePixels="true">
        <ContentPresenter HorizontalAlignment="{TemplateBinding HorizontalContentAlignment}" RecognizesAccessKey="True" SnapsToDevicePixels="{TemplateBinding SnapsToDevicePixels}" VerticalAlignment="{TemplateBinding VerticalContentAlignment}"/>
    </Border>
    <ControlTemplate.Triggers>
        <Trigger Property="IsEnabled" Value="false">
            <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{DynamicResource {x:Static SystemColors.GrayTextBrushKey}}"/>
        </Trigger>
    </ControlTemplate.Triggers>
</ControlTemplate>