#34 – ContentControl

Content controls are a category of controls that can hold a single nested element, which represents its content.  Since the nested element can be anything, controls that derive from ContentControl can store a variety of different types of content.

Content controls have a Content property, which points to the single element that they contain.  The element is often an UIElement, but can be any .NET object.

Here’s an example, with CheckBox using a DatePicker as its content.

 <CheckBox Height="31" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Name="checkBox1" VerticalAlignment="Center">
     <DatePicker Name="datePicker1"  />
 </CheckBox>

Note that because the Window class is a content control, a Window may have only one child element.

You can effectively include a collection of controls in a content control by including as its content a single container object that in turn contains other elements.  (E.g. A Button could contain a StackPanel, which would then contain other elements).