Difference implicit/non-implicit themes

[Heiko]

By taking a first look at the different themes I found no difference between implicit and non-implicit themes at all. For example when looking at ..\Telerik\RadControls for Silverlight Q3 2012\Themes\Windows8\Themes or ..\Telerik\RadControls for Silverlight Q3 2012\Themes.Implicit\Windows8\Themes, file Telerik.Windows.Controls.xaml, the LabelStyle ends with:

<Style TargetType="telerik:Label" BasedOn="{StaticResource LabelStyle}" />

in both files which in my opinion is implicit. Comparing these two file inside the two directories they seem to be identical besides different formatting.

Could somebody please explain where the differences are? Maybe my understanding of implicit styles is wrong?

TIA
Neils

[Vanya Pavlova]

Hi Neils,  


Interesting topic to discuss, indeed. I believe that the best option here would be to explain what is the difference between particular styling techniques, the idea behind Telerik StyleManager and Implicit styles and how they work. Think in this way that for know we support two theming mechanisms - these styles are structured to work in both ways -  with our StyleManager and Implicit styles. 
As you have already noticed we ship themes and binaries in the following folders:

1. Themes
2. Themes.Implicit
3. Binaries
4. Binaries.NoXAML

Binaries are those assemblies with the default Office_Black theme and Binaries.NoXAML do not contain the default theme. In the Themes/Themes.Implicit folders you may find our themes as separate projects and you may use these to create your own themes or just to take the desired component style per assembly. In the world of Silverlight they are almost equal and have a keyed style and implicit one based on it. In WPF however you have those and additional platform specific composite key, which is internally used by our StyleManager. There is a tricky part here - in the standard style files from the Themes folder you have a reference to a theme like the following one:

telerik:StyleManager.Theme="{StaticResource Theme}"

Where the Theme stands for the name key of the corresponding theme:

<telerik:Office_BlackTheme x:Key="Theme" />

Within an implicit style you do not have such key and reference to a particular theme. 
In our online documentation you will find more info on that matter, please follow this link.  
If you have any additional questions do not hesitate to contact us!    



Kind regards,
Vanya Pavlova
the Telerik team

[Heiko]

Thank you very much for that explanation in detail! The telerik:StyleManager.Theme="{StaticResource Theme}" is the part I was missing to understand the difference. Also the article in the documentation you mentioned is very helpful.

Maybe you could also explain the following behavior. When I add a reference to an assembly in "...\Binaries.NoXaml\Silverlight\Telerik.Windows.Controls.dll" an assembly with this name is referenced but it points to the normal "...\Binaries\Silverlight" directory. I have to manually add a "hint" to the right path in the .proj file.

[Vanya Pavlova]

Hello Neils,

 

Thank you for getting back to us! For the time being our Project Configuration Wizard refers standard binaries, not NoXAML ones. You should navigate where you have installed RadControls/Silverlight and manually add needed NoXAML (.....silverlight5/Binaries.NoXaml/Silverlight) assemblies.

Greetings,
Vanya Pavlova
the Telerik team

[Heiko]

Hello Vanya,

wow, fast replies today! Thumbs up! :-)

I do not use the Project Configuration Wizard but do it manually. What I do is following:

1. Right-click on "References -> Add reference"
2. Go to the Binaries.NoXaml directory and choose a file
3. Click "OK".

When looking for the properties of this file I can see that it points to the normal "Binaries" directory, see attached file! I know this has nothing to do with Telerik but is strange anyway.

Best regards
Neils

[Matthias]

Hi,

i noticed this behaviour too. The path to the referenced assemblies automatically switches to the normal "Binaries" directory.

Best
Matthias

[Teodor]

Hello,

 The assembly references resolve to the "Binaries" directory due to the Telerik controls registration in AssemblyFolderEx. Any assembly registered there is included in the IDE's reference search path. This registration is required so that the controls are selectable from the "Add Reference" dialog and the "Choose Toolbox Items" dialog (from the toolbox context menu). You can read more here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/wkze6zky(v=VS.100).aspx

Please write if you have any further questions.

All the best,
Teodor
the Telerik teamThank you for using the Telerik Installer!