A parent/ancestor FrameworkElement can, however, force all child elements to use a particular cursor, by setting the ForceCursor property to true.  This overrides any Cursor property values that the child elements might set.

In the example below, the second Button sets its Cursor property to Hand, but this value is overridden because the parent StackPanel sets the ForceCursor property to true.

    <StackPanel Cursor="Hand" ForceCursor="True">
        <Label Content="Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit"
               Margin="5"
               Background="LightCoral"/>
        <Label Content="Noli habere bovis, vir"
               Margin="5"
               Background="DarkSeaGreen"/>
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"
                    HorizontalAlignment="Center">
            <Button Content="Veni, Vidi"
                    Padding="10,5" Margin="10"/>
            <Button Content="Dormivi"
                    Cursor="Wait"
                    Padding="10,5" Margin="10"/>
        </StackPanel>
    </StackPanel>

You can, however, set a Cursor on a top-level element and then set a different value for Cursor on the lower-level element.  The top-level Cursor will be used for all descendants of the top-level element except for the one that explicitly sets a different cursor.

    <StackPanel Cursor="Hand">
        <Label Content="Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit"
               Margin="5"
               Background="LightCoral"/>
        <Label Content="Noli habere bovis, vir"
               Margin="5"
               Background="DarkSeaGreen"/>
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"
                    HorizontalAlignment="Center">
            <Button Content="Veni, Vidi"
                    Padding="10,5" Margin="10"/>
            <Button Content="Dormivi"
                    Cursor="Wait"
                    Padding="10,5" Margin="10"/>
        </StackPanel>
    </StackPanel>

You can also do two-way binding, where the boolean variable changes when the user toggles the CheckBox, but the CheckBox also toggles when the value of the variable changes.

        <Label Content="Things my dog can do:"/>
        <CheckBox Content="Sit" IsChecked="{Binding CanSit, Mode=TwoWay}"/>
        <CheckBox Content="Stay" IsChecked="{Binding CanStay, Mode=TwoWay}"/>
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" HorizontalAlignment="Center">
            <Button Content="Report State" Click="btnReportState_Click"
                    Margin="5"/>
            <Button Content="Change State" Click="btnChangeState_Click"
                    Margin="5"/>
        </StackPanel>

Code-behind:

    public partial class MainWindow : Window, INotifyPropertyChanged
    {
        private bool canSit;
        public bool CanSit
        {
            get { return canSit; }
            set
            {
                canSit = value;
                RaisePropertyChanged("CanSit");
            }
        }

        private bool canStay;
        public bool CanStay
        {
            get { return canStay; }
            set
            {
                canStay = value;
                RaisePropertyChanged("CanStay");
            }
        }

        public MainWindow()
        {
            this.InitializeComponent();
            this.DataContext = this;
        }

        private void btnReportState_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            MessageBox.Show(string.Format("Sit: {0}, Stay: {1}", CanSit, CanStay));
        }

        private void btnChangeState_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            CanSit = CanSit ? false : true;
        }

        public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

        private void RaisePropertyChanged(string propName)
        {
            PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propName));
        }
    }

In the example below, when we set the Cursor in the top-level Window, that cursor is used for all elements contained in the window.

Layout, within the Window:

    <StackPanel>
        <Label Content="Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit"
               Margin="5"
               Background="LightCoral"/>
        <Label Content="Noli habere bovis, vir"
               Margin="5"
               Background="DarkSeaGreen"/>
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"
                    HorizontalAlignment="Center">
            <Button Content="Veni, Vidi"
                    Padding="10,5" Margin="10"
                    Click="btnClick_Wait"/>
            <Button Content="Dormivi"
                    Padding="10,5" Margin="10"
                    Click="btnClick_StopWaiting"/>
        </StackPanel>
    </StackPanel>

Code-behind:

    public partial class MainWindow : Window
    {
        public MainWindow()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void btnClick_Wait(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            this.Cursor = Cursors.AppStarting;
        }

        private void btnClick_StopWaiting(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            this.Cursor = Cursors.Arrow;
        }
    }

When you set the Cursor property on an element, you’re indicating which cursor should appear when a user moves the mouse over that element.

You can set the Cursor property in XAML or in code.  In either case, you can pick from one of the predefined cursors in System.Windows.Input.Cursors.  In the image below, Intellisense in Visual Studio shows a list of the available cursors when setting the Cursor property from XAML.

In the example below, we indicate that we want the Wait cursor displayed whenever we hover over the second label.

    <StackPanel>
        <Label Content="I'm just a label, you know?"
               Margin="5"
               Background="LightCoral"/>
        <Label Content="I'm waiting and waiting"
               Margin="5"
               Background="DarkSeaGreen"
               Cursor="Wait"/>
    </StackPanel>

• Ideal – Default value, formats text using the standard WPF method.  Glyph shapes are preserved, independent of their final position on the display
• Display – Positions edges of glyphs on pixel boundaries.  Can result in clearer edges of text.

You should use the value of Ideal, except for the situations listed below.

Set TextFormattingMode to Display when all of the following is true:

• The FontSize of the text is 14 or less  (small text)
• Text is not being transformed (scaled, rotated, translated)
• The exact shape of the glyphs is not critical (e.g. for some graphic design scenario)

To avoid fuzzy text at small sizes, you can set the TextOptions.TextFormattingMode property to Display (as opposed to the default value of Ideal).  This tells WPF to align the glyphs at pixel boundaries, which can lead to crisper/cleaner text.

        <TextBlock Text="WiWi WIWI HaHaHa (Ideal = Default)"
                   Margin="5"/>
        <TextBlock Text="WiWi WIWI HaHaHa (Display)"
                   TextOptions.TextFormattingMode="Display"
                   Margin="5"/>

You can also download a Microsoft-provided tool, the OpenType Font File Properties Extension, to get even more information about each font.  You can download the tool from here.  (This tool will only work on 32-bit operating systems).

After installing the extension tool, the properties dialog for a font file will contain a number of additional tabs.

• Embedding – Are you allowed to embed the font in your application?
• CharSet/Unicode – What encoding method is used (e.g. Unicode)
• Links – (optional) URL to font vendor
• Description – General info on the font
• License – license information
• Version – font version
• Hinting/Font Smoothing – point sizes for hinting/smoothing
• Names – Font name, font family name, vendor, etc.
• Features – Description from vendor

For example, assume that you have a directory containing some TrueType (.ttf) fonts, which are not current installed.

You start by navigating to the folder containing the fonts.

You can set the view in Windows Explorer to one of the icon-based views (e.g. Large icons) to see a thumbnail-based preview of each font.

You can also turn on the Preview pane to see a preview of each font, as you select it.

Finally, as with the Fonts applet, you can double-click a font to open a preview of the font in a separate window.

You can see all installed fonts by opening the Fonts applet.  On Windows 8, click the Start button, type “fonts”, click on “Settings” in the search results and then double-click the Fonts icon.

This applet will show you a list of all fonts installed on your system, with each font displayed as a preview icon, or appearing as a stack of icons.

The icons that look like a stack indicate that there are multiple unique fonts for a particular font family.  Double-clicking on the stack shows you the individual fonts for that font family.

You can get a preview of any of the fonts by double-clicking the font (or right-clicking and selecting Preview).  A preview window will open, showing you a sample of the font.