Menu ControlTemplate Example

  • Article

Controls in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) have a ControlTemplate that contains the visual tree of that control. You can change the structure and appearance of a control by modifying the ControlTemplate of that control. There is no way to replace only part of the visual tree of a control; to change the visual tree of a control you must set the Template property of the control to its new and complete ControlTemplate.

This topic shows the ControlTemplate of the WPF Menu control.

This topic contains the following sections.

  • Prerequisites
  • Menu ControlTemplate Example
  • Related Topics

Prerequisites

To run the examples in this topic, you should understand how to write WPF applications. For more information, see Getting Started with Windows Presentation Foundation. You should also understand how styles are used in WPF. For more information, see Styling and Templating.

Although this example contains all of the elements that are defined in the ControlTemplate of a Menu by default, the specific values should be thought of as examples.

<Style x:Key="{x:Type Menu}" TargetType="{x:Type Menu}">
  <Setter Property="OverridesDefaultStyle" Value="True"/>
  <Setter Property="SnapsToDevicePixels" Value="True"/>
  <Setter Property="Template">
    <Setter.Value>
      <ControlTemplate TargetType="{x:Type Menu}">
        <Border 
          Background="{StaticResource LightBrush}"
          BorderBrush="{StaticResource NormalBorderBrush}"
          BorderThickness="1">
          <StackPanel ClipToBounds="True" Orientation="Horizontal" IsItemsHost="True"/>
        </Border>
      </ControlTemplate>
    </Setter.Value>
  </Setter>
</Style>

The preceding example uses the following resources.

<LinearGradientBrush x:Key="LightBrush" StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="0,1">
  <GradientBrush.GradientStops>
    <GradientStopCollection>
      <GradientStop Color="#FFF" Offset="0.0"/>
      <GradientStop Color="#EEE" Offset="1.0"/>
    </GradientStopCollection>
  </GradientBrush.GradientStops>
</LinearGradientBrush>


...


<LinearGradientBrush x:Key="NormalBorderBrush" StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="0,1">
  <GradientBrush.GradientStops>
    <GradientStopCollection>
      <GradientStop Color="#CCC" Offset="0.0"/>
      <GradientStop Color="#444" Offset="1.0"/>
    </GradientStopCollection>
  </GradientBrush.GradientStops>
</LinearGradientBrush>

For the complete sample, see Styling with ControlTemplates Sample.

See Also

Concepts

Guidelines for Designing Stylable Controls

MenuItem ControlTemplate Example

Other Resources

ControlTemplate Examples