Brush Class

A Brush "paints" or "fills" an area with its output. Different brushes have different types of output. Some brushes paint an area with a solid color, others with a gradient, pattern, image, or drawing. The following list describes the different types of WPF brushes:

• SolidColorBrush : Paints an area with a solid Color.

• LinearGradientBrush : Paints an area with a linear gradient.

• RadialGradientBrush : Paints an area with a radial gradient.

• ImageBrush : Paints an area with an image (represented by an ImageSource object).

• DrawingBrush : Paints an area with a Drawing. The drawing may include vector and bitmap objects.

• VisualBrush : Paints an area with a Visual object. A VisualBrush enables you to duplicate content from one portion of your application into another area; it's very useful for creating reflection effects and magnifying portions of the screen.

Predefined Brushes

Brushes in XAML

Freezable Features

When you inherit from the Brush class, you must override the CreateInstanceCore method. Depending on whether your class must perform additional initialization work or contains non-dependency property data members, you might need to override additional Freezable methods. For more information about inheriting from Freezable types, see the Freezable Objects Overview.

To paint an area with a solid color, you can use a predefined system brush, such as Red or Blue, or you can create a new SolidColorBrush and describe its Color using alpha, red, green, and blue values. In XAML, you may also paint an area with a solid color by using hexidecimal notation.

The following examples uses each of these techniques to paint a Rectangle blue.

Using a Predefined Brush

In the following example uses the predefined brush Blue to paint a rectangle blue.

<Rectangle Width="50" Height="50" Fill="Blue" />

// Create a rectangle and paint it with
// a predefined brush.
Rectangle myPredefinedBrushRectangle = new Rectangle();
myPredefinedBrushRectangle.Width = 50;
myPredefinedBrushRectangle.Height = 50;
myPredefinedBrushRectangle.Fill = Brushes.Blue;

Using Hexadecimal Notation

The next example uses 8-digit hexadecimal notation to paint a rectangle blue.

<!-- Note that the first two characters "FF" of the 8-digit
     value is the alpha which controls the transparency of 
     the color. Therefore, to make a completely transparent
     color (invisible), use "00" for those digits (e.g. #000000FF). -->
<Rectangle Width="50" Height="50" Fill="#FF0000FF" />

Using ARGB Values

The next example creates a SolidColorBrush and describes its Color using the ARGB values for the color blue.

<Rectangle Width="50" Height="50">
  <Rectangle.Fill>
    <SolidColorBrush>
     <SolidColorBrush.Color>

        <!-- Describes the brush's color using
             RGB values. Each value has a range of 0-255.  
             R is for red, G is for green, and B is for blue.
             A is for alpha which controls transparency of the
             color. Therefore, to make a completely transparent
             color (invisible), use a value of 0 for Alpha. -->
        <Color A="255" R="0" G="0" B="255" />
     </SolidColorBrush.Color>
    </SolidColorBrush>
  </Rectangle.Fill>
</Rectangle>

Rectangle myRgbRectangle = new Rectangle();
myRgbRectangle.Width = 50;
myRgbRectangle.Height = 50;
SolidColorBrush mySolidColorBrush = new SolidColorBrush();

// Describes the brush's color using RGB values. 
// Each value has a range of 0-255.
mySolidColorBrush.Color = Color.FromArgb(255, 0, 0, 255);
myRgbRectangle.Fill = mySolidColorBrush;           

For other ways of describing color, see the Color structure.

Related Topics

For more information about SolidColorBrush and additional examples, see the Painting with Solid Colors and Gradients Overview overview.

This code example is part of a larger example provided for the SolidColorBrush class. For the complete sample, see the Brushes Sample.

More Code

.NET Framework

.NET Framework Client Profile

Windows 7, Windows Vista SP1 or later, Windows XP SP3, Windows Server 2008 (Server Core not supported), Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core supported with SP1 or later), Windows Server 2003 SP2

Reference

Other Resources