#10 – Control Templates

Similar to styles in WPF, but different, are templates.  Templates allow you to replace all aspects of a UI control’s appearance without changing its behavior.

Every control in WPF has a default template that completely specifies its appearance.  You can replace the default template with a template that you’ve authored, to change the appearance of the control.

You change a control’s template by changing its Template property.  Here’s an example where we create a new button template that gives the button a thick blue border.

<Window.Resources>
    <ControlTemplate x:Key="Crazy" TargetType="Button">
        <Border BorderBrush="Blue" Background="White" BorderThickness="3">
            <ContentPresenter></ContentPresenter>
        </Border>
    </ControlTemplate>
</Window.Resources>
<Grid Height="auto" Width="503">
    <StackPanel Height="100" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="85,139,0,0" Name="stackPanel1"  >
        <Button Content="Crazy template" Template="{StaticResource Crazy}"  />
        <Button Content="Default template" />
    </StackPanel>
</Grid>