Bitmap Effects

Bitmap effects are special effects that change the overall appearance of an element or a set of elements. There is a significant performance impact for using bitmap effects, but sometimes they can create a unique effect that you can't get any other way.

You can apply a Bitmap effect to any element, but I'm going to use the same button that we used in the previous tutorial.

To apply a Bitmap Effect, you first need to have something selected. Select the large button.

BitmapEffect is a property on nearly all WPF elements. So, we need to locate the BitmapEffect property in the property inspector. Instead of scrolling through the list, you can type any portion of the property that you're looking for in the Search box. This will filter the list down to quickly find what you need. Type "Bitmap" in the search box, and the list will be shortened to only BitmapEffect and BitmapEffectInput, the only properties that contain Bitmaps.

Pressing the down arrow next to BitmapEffect will allow you to choose which bitmap effect you want to apply. Select Drop Shadow.

As soon as you apply the Drop Shadow, all of the parameters for the Drop Shadow are displayed, so you can change the ShadowDepth or the color of the shadow here.

Click the down arrow again, and this time, select Outer Glow.

You'll notice that when you do this, the Drop Shadow disappears, and it's replaced with the Outer Glow. It may appear that you can only have one Bitmap Effect at any given time, but in reality, that's not true.

This time, select BitmapEffect Group. When you do this, the parameters are replaced with a single row named "Children" and a ... button is created. This is the collection editor, and through it, you can edit a group of BitmapEffects at once.

Press the ... button, and the collection editor is displayed. You may want to drag this off to the side, so you can see both it, and the shopping cart button at the same time.

This time, when you press the down arrow next to "Add another item", it will add a new bitmap effect to the group. Try adding an Emboss effect and then an Outer Glow effect.

You can reorder the bitmap effects with the up and down arrow buttons to get different looks, or delete any arbitrary effect by selecting it and pressing the red X button.