Home / Community & Support / Developer Productivity Tools Forums / Silverlight > General Discussions > Overriding theme styles

• Richard

  Posted on Feb 2, 2012 (permalink)

  Hi,
  
  
  I'm wondering if it's possible to use a Telerik theme (Expression Dark) while overriding certain theme properties. For example, I find that the Expression Dark theme looks good overall, but I'd like the caret in a TextBox to be white rather than black.
  
  I tried the following in my application resource dictionary:
  
  

  <Style TargetType="TextBox">

      <Setter Property="telerik:StyleManager.Theme" Value="Expression_Dark" />

      <Setter Property="HorizontalContentAlignment" Value="Left" />

      <Setter Property="CaretBrush" Value="White" />

  </Style>

  
  This uses an implicit style to apply the Expression Dark theme to all text boxes. I found that when I did this, the content became centered for some reason; so I also added the HorizontalContentAlignment setter.
  
  When I use the above style, the CaretBrush setter has no effect - the caret remains black. I can set the CaretBrush explicitly on each TextBox element, but I was hoping to apply the same style to all text boxes automatically.
  
  Is there a better way to do this? We are still using Silverlight 4 - I'm not sure if that makes a difference.
  
  I guess another option would be to create a custom TextBox-derived control, and set the properties I want to change programmatically. Or should I investigate making a copy of the Expression Dark theme and modifying it?
  
  
  Thanks for your help,
  Richard
  

  Reply

• Richard

  Posted on Feb 3, 2012 (permalink)

  Hi,
  
  
  I ended up solving the problem by copying the control template from the Themes solution that comes with the Telerik controls installation. I didn't create a custom theme - I just copied the Telerik template from the theme into my own resource dictionary. I modified this copy, and I used the copy directly rather than applying the Telerik theme to my text boxes. I'm still using the Telerik theme for other control types, but I don't apply it to text boxes.
  
  Also, I realized belatedly that it's not a good idea to use an implicit style to set telerik:StyleManager.Theme. I'm sure the style manager has to reset the implicit style at runtime, and I guess that blows away the telerik:StyleManager.Theme property that brought in the style manager in the first place.
  
  This was causing my Visual Studio to crash. I switched to use the StyleManager.BasedOn() approach described by Vanya Pavlova here:
  http://www.telerik.com/community/forums/silverlight/general-discussions/expression-dark-theme-on-non-telerik-controls.aspx 
  It's working fine for me now.
  
  
  Thanks,
  Richard
  
  
  

  Reply

Back to Top

Home / Community & Support / Developer Productivity Tools Forums / Silverlight > General Discussions > Overriding theme styles