Gary Gumbiner, MCT, MCPD, MCSD .NET

Silverlight Toolkit Theme Controls

I downloaded the Silverlight toolkit from http://silverlight.codeplex.com/releases/view/43528 (Silverlight_4_Toolkit_April_2010.msi). When I ran the msi, and subsequently opened Visual studio 2010, in the toolbox under the tab "All Silverlight Controls" I found several "Theme Controls" such as BubbleCremeTheme, RainierOrangeTheme etc.

These can be used as controls rather easily. For example, open a new Silverlight application. On MainPage.xaml select a theme control from the toolbox and drag it onto the design surface. This causes a reference to be added to the Silverlight project for the associated theme control (System.Windows.Controls.Theming.BubbleCreme).

I used the XAML tab to get the xaml to look like the following:

<grid name="LayoutRoot" background="White">
<?xml:namespace prefix = toolkit />
<toolkit:bubblecremetheme name="BubbleCremeTheme1">
<toolkit:bubblecremetheme.content>
</toolkit:bubblecremetheme.content>
</toolkit:bubblecremetheme>
</grid>

I added some controls to <toolkit:bubblecremetheme.content>. An example follows:

<grid name="LayoutRoot" background="White">
<toolkit:bubblecremetheme name="BubbleCremeTheme1">
<toolkit:bubblecremetheme.content>
<grid>
<button name="Button1" type="submit" content="Button" height="23" horizontalalignment="Left" margin="56,30,0,0" verticalalignment="Top" width="75">
<checkbox content="CheckBox" name="CheckBox1" height="16" horizontalalignment="Left" margin="58,62,0,0" verticalalignment="Top">
</grid>
</toolkit:bubblecremetheme.content>
</toolkit:bubblecremetheme>
</grid>

The themes are encapsulated in the associated control (System.Windows.Controls.Theming.BubbleCreme) - they should be treated like any other control when used. During my experimentation I had to switch between design and xaml views in Visual Studio 2010 to get the xaml just right.

Xaml source for the themes are available and can be found at the installation path for the Silverlight 4.0 toolkit: (on my Windows 7 64 bit machine: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v4.0\Toolkit\Apr10\Themes\Xaml)

posted by Gary Gumbiner, MCT, MCPD, MCSD .NET @ 2:37 PM