Free themes

Hi,

I have installed WpfElementsTrial. May I ask where can I find the free themes?

Thanks, Candy

Hello Candy

Go to Start Menu > Mindscape > WPF Elements > WPF Elements Directory. This will open the install directory in windows explorer. Go into the Themes folder and you will find all the free themes. The themes that apply to standard WPF controls are in the files that end with "BuiltIn.xaml". There are 5 themes: OfficeBlue.BuiltIn.xaml, OfficeSilver.BuiltIn.xaml, OfficeBlack.BuiltIn.xaml, Alloy.BuiltIn.xaml and AlloyLight.BuiltIn.xaml. You can copy these files, modify them and use them in any way you need in your applications. To apply one of the themes to an application, Reference the file in a merged ResourceDictionary like this:

<Window.Resources>
    <ResourceDictionary>
        <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
            <ResourceDictionary Source="OfficeBlue.BuiltIn.xaml" />
        </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
    </ResourceDictionary>
</Window.Resources>

Jason Fauchelle

Jason,

I tried what you said, but it throws a bunch of errors in the theme files. Mainly regarding unfound controls or nonexistent files. Is there some dll I need to import into my project? Or should I just delete the code (in themes) that reference the nonexistent controls?

Thanks for pointing this out.

I forgot the standard themes uses a couple of classes in WPF Elements. The IfFullTrustExtension is used to include drop-shadow-effects on popups that will automatically be ignored when using the theme in an Xbap (running WPF in a browser). The DoubleToVisibilityConverter is used to hide the scroll bar gripper if the scroll bar is too small.

There are 3 main ways to avoid this.

The first is as you said to remove the code that uses WPF Elements. If you don't think you need the things that I mentioned above, then you can search through the theme file for "local:" and delete that code. For the drop-shadow-effects, you'll just want to delete the local:IfFullTrust tag and the CDATA tag but keep the DropShadowEffect.

Another option is to include the Mindscape.WpfElements.dll to your application, and change the namespace reference at the top of the theme file to this:

xmlns:local="clr-namespace:Mindscape.WpfElements"

Alternatively you can use this code in your application, and reference this locally instead of needing the WPF Elements dll:

/// <summary>
/// Provides conditional logic for creating objects in xaml that are not supported in partial trust mode.
/// </summary>
[ContentProperty("Xaml")]
public class IfFullTrustExtension : MarkupExtension
{
  private static bool _isFullTrust;

  static IfFullTrustExtension()
  {
    try
    {
      PermissionState state = PermissionState.Unrestricted;
      new UIPermission(state).Assert();
      _isFullTrust = true;
    }
    catch { }
  }

  /// <summary>
  /// The xaml code for creating the object.
  /// </summary>
  public string Xaml { get; set; }

  /// <summary>
  /// Creates an object using the Xaml property if the current environment is in full trust mode.
  /// </summary>
  /// <param name="serviceProvider">The <see cref="IServiceProvider"/>.</param>
  /// <returns>An object based on the Xaml property if full trust is enabled. Otherwise returns null.</returns>
  public override object ProvideValue(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
  {
    object o = null;
    if (_isFullTrust)
    {
      try
      {
        using (StringReader stringReader = new StringReader(Xaml))
        {
          using (XmlReader xmlReader = XmlReader.Create(stringReader))
          {
            o = XamlReader.Load(xmlReader);
          }
        }
      }
      catch (Exception e)
      {
        Debug.Fail("Invalid XAML: " + e);
      }
    }
    return o;
  }
}

And the converter:

public class DoubleToVisibilityConverter : IValueConverter
{
  public double VisibleThreshold { get; set; }

  public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
  {
    double d = (double)value;
    return d >= VisibleThreshold ? Visibility.Visible : Visibility.Collapsed;
  }

  public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
  {
    throw new NotImplementedException();
  }
}

Jason Fauchelle