Styling objects (Blend for Visual Studio)

You can style the objects in your application in different ways. The most basic way is to set properties that relate to the appearance of the object.

For more information, see Setting colors, brushes, and masks (Blend for Visual Studio).

If you want to style a control that supports templates, such as the Button control or the FlipView control, you can modify its template. You can either start with a copy of the default template and modify that, or focus on your design by drawing everything on the artboard first, using drawing tools, and importing art or other assets. When you are done, you can convert your objects into a template for any control. Because the template affects only the appearance of the control to which it's applied, the interactivity of the control remains the same.

For more information, see Styling a control that supports templates (Blend for Visual Studio).

As an alternative to using a control, you can create your own user control, and define a different visual appearance for each state the control can be in.

For more information, see Defining different visual states for a control (Blend for Visual Studio).

Styles and templates are stored in reusable entities called resources. In fact, the value of any property can be converted to a reusable resource that you can apply to another property.

For more information, see Creating reusable resources (Blend for Visual Studio).

Multiple resources can be stored in a resource dictionary file and then added to multiple projects. By doing this, you can define a theme for your company by storing color resources, and styles and templates for common controls, in a resource dictionary.