#439 – Using a DropShadow with a Border, part II

I described earlier how you can use two sibling Border elements to end up with the effect of a Border with a DropShadow.  We did this because specifying a DropShadowEffect for a Border will lead to all of the child elements contained in the Border getting the same drop shadow.

A cleaner way to avoid the drop shadows on the child elements is to just specify a value for the Background property of the original parent Border, so that it becomes opaque.

            <Border Margin="10" BorderBrush="DarkGray" BorderThickness="1" CornerRadius="4"
                    Background="{x:Static SystemColors.ControlLightLightBrush}">
            	<Border.Effect>
            		<DropShadowEffect/>
            	</Border.Effect>
                <StackPanel Orientation="Vertical" Margin="5" Visibility="Visible">
                    <Label Content="Rounded corners are everywhere"/>
                    <Button Content="Push Me" Padding="30,5" Margin="5" HorizontalAlignment="Center"/>
                </StackPanel>
            </Border>

You can get some nice effects by using the combination of a gradient fill for the background along with a drop shadow.