Themes

The theme files in this section are created from the resource dictionaries containing each Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) theme and are provided as examples of how to create themes, as well as how to customize existing controls. In addition, the theme files should give you some insight into creating robust controls. You can use the templates in these themes as a starting place for customizing your own controls, or you can use the simplified versions in the ControlTemplate Examples. The advantage of the latter is that they show only the parts of the ControlTemplate that you must re-create if you write a custom ControlTemplate for an existing control. If you want to re-create the look and feel of a specific theme and need to match visual parity with one of the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) controls, the theme files are your best starting place.

The desktop themes determine which resource dictionary is used. The following table describes the resource dictionary file names and their corresponding desktop themes.

Theme file

Desktop theme

Classic.xaml

Classic Windows look (from Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000) on the Windows XP operating system..

Luna.NormalColor.xaml

Default blue theme on Windows XP.

Luna.Homestead.xaml

Olive theme on Windows XP.

Luna.Metallic.xaml

Silver theme on Windows XP.

Royale.NormalColor.xaml

Default theme on the Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system.

Aero.NormalColor.xaml

Default theme on the Windows Vista operating system.

In This Section

Reference

Change History

Date

History

Reason

February 2009

Added a table that maps theme files to desktop themes.

Customer feedback.