Telerik Themes for WPF

[Roland]

Hello,

I would like to make a suggestion.

At the moment, I find most of the Telerik themes useless.

However it would be really nice if Telerik themes like Windows 7 theme in Q3 and older ones could be applied to ALL wpf controls (not only Telerik ones). This would allow us to provide consistent

It seems that your competition, DevExpress, did that already and people find it usefull.

I think most people here would like Telerik to provide this functionality.

[Nikolay]

Hello Roland,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. 

Currently our themes can be applied to the following standard controls:
Button, TextBox, LIstBox, CheckBox, RadioButton

With the forthcoming Q3 2009 we plan to launch our own Button, DropDownButton, RadioButton and ToggleButton controls that will also be styled with all the available themes for RadControls for Silverlight/WPF.

In a week from now we will launch Beta 1 release including the button controls mentioned above. However, at that beta stage they will support only the default Office_Black theme.

Greetings,
Nick
the Telerik team

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[Roland]

Thanks. Looking forward to new release.

[Calabonga]

You say: "Currently our themes can be applied to the following standard controls:
Button, TextBox, LIstBox, CheckBox, RadioButton"

But how i can apply yours WPF themes to the standart WPF controls? Example for ListBox?

Короче, а если я буду делать свои контролы, как я могу Ваши Theme применить на свой (СustomControl) контрол?

Помоги пожалуйста. Это очень важно, потому что моя компания хочет приобрести у Вас много чего из Ваших наработок.

С уважением,
Сергей,
www.calabonga.com

[Dimitrina]

Hello Sergei Calabonga,

Please find attached an example. If you have further more questions please do not hesitate to ask us.

I hope this will help you.

Regards,
Dimitrina
the Telerik team

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[Calabonga]

thanks! that's worked!
but I have another interesting question (please, see attachment)

P.S.: ...sorry for my english...

[Calabonga]

Can anybody help me??!?!?

[Dimitrina]

Hi Calabonga,

You can apply  a custom theme to any of  the controls. For more information you can follow the link below:
http://www.telerik.com/help/silverlight/radcontrols-for-silverlight-expression-blend-support.html 

If you have further more questions please do not hesitate to ask us
I hope this will help you.

All the best,
Dimitrina
the Telerik team

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[Calabonga]

Well, I understand.
So if I want to change styles programmatically, I have to create files with other type of styles like that:

 <!-- this is for global style for controls -->
    <Style TargetType="TextBox"
           BasedOn="{StaticResource {telerik:ThemeResourceKey ThemeType=telerik:Office_BlueTheme, ElementType=TextBox}}" />
    <Style TargetType="ListBox"
           BasedOn="{StaticResource {telerik:ThemeResourceKey ThemeType=telerik:Office_BlueTheme, ElementType=ListBox}}"/>
    <Style TargetType="ListBoxItem"
           BasedOn="{StaticResource {telerik:ThemeResourceKey ThemeType=telerik:Office_BlueTheme, ElementType=ListBoxItem}}" />
    <Style TargetType="Button"
           BasedOn="{StaticResource {telerik:ThemeResourceKey ThemeType=telerik:Office_BlueTheme, ElementType=Button}}" />
    <Style TargetType="RadioButton"
           BasedOn="{StaticResource {telerik:ThemeResourceKey ThemeType=telerik:Office_BlueTheme, ElementType=RadioButton}}" />
    <Style TargetType="CheckBox"
           BasedOn="{StaticResource {telerik:ThemeResourceKey ThemeType=telerik:Office_BlueTheme, ElementType=CheckBox}}" />

And than automatically load them at application startup.

Thanks. Your help realy help me.

[Simon]

Hello Dimitrina

How do you apply the styles to a standard WPF control which is hosted in a RadWindow?
<Windows.Resources> tag is not liked.

Regards,
Simon

[Pana]

Hi Simon,

You can either set local value for the StyleManager.Theme property or add the styles described below in the application xaml. Setting the styles in the app.xaml will apply the styles globally so you will not have to modify the RadWindow.Resources ResourceDictionary.

Best wishes,
Panayot
the Telerik team

[Simon]

I have set the Telerik WPF controls when I started my project already to Office Blue. But will the app.xaml set the non Telerik controls or do I have to copy and paste the code above to each form?

[Pana]

Hello Simon,

If you set in the app.xaml the styles that Sergei Calabonga posted all forms in your application should display the Button, TextBox, LIstBox, CheckBox, RadioButton in Office_Blue theme. If they do not there is a chance that other implicit styles interfere. If you set local style on a control the implicit style will not work. You will have to base them on Office_Blue too.

All the best,
Panayot
the Telerik team

[Simon]

Do you have a sample of how this is done?

[Pana]

Hi Simon,

Check the attached project. It has a ne CustomRadWindowControl defined. It works like custom UserControl but it is based on RadWindow. You can create one easy if you have our controls installed - then the 'add new item' section will have an 'add telerik scenario' option (pretty purple button) where you can select to create new RadWindow... it will generate all the classes names and xaml for you.

In the app.xaml I have added the styles mentioned below. They set implicit styles for the MS controls based on the styles for our Office_Blue so the Button, TextBox and ListBox in the custom rad window will pick them.

The MainWindow has a button that will create a new instance of the CustomRadWindowControl and open it.

Best wishes,
Panayot
the Telerik team

[DOUG]

I am using the telerik theme to make a standard CheckBox have the look of a telerik control. This works for the most part, but it does not provide  visual clue (e.g. a yellow outline) when the checkbox as the focus. I did this for a TextBox and it worked completely. Only the CheckBox style lacks the "has focus" styling. Here is the code I used:
<Style TargetType="{x:Type CheckBox}"
           BasedOn="{StaticResource {telerik:ThemeResourceKey ThemeType=telerik:Office_BlackTheme, ElementType=CheckBox}}">
Is there something else I need to do for my CheckBox style?

[Pana]

Hi Simon,

This is a known issue and we have scheduled a fix for it. I would recommend you just ignore the problem for now and when you upgrade to the next official release the checkbox will have the focused states. Also the fix will be available in one of the upcoming internal builds probably 2 weeks from now.

I am sorry for the inconvenience.

Regards,

Pana
the Telerik team

[Joe]

This example is weak.  The example shows how to HARD CODE a specific style for specific WPF control types.  This means a new code drop just to change the theme or if we missed enumerating a WPF control type.  Really?  Is that the best suggestion we can get from telerik?  Doesn't that defeat the idea of a Theme?  Say, for example, that the company has three approved color schemes and the user can switch color schemes.  How can we do that without a code release?  Please show me that.  And what if the user decides they want their Windows Theme to show through their WPF/telerik application.  I need to tell them "Yes it can".  But how?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Joe

 <Application.Resources>
 <!-- this is for global style for controls -->
 <Style TargetType="TextBox" BasedOn="{StaticResource {telerik:ThemeResourceKey ThemeType=telerik:Office_BlueTheme, ElementType=TextBox}}" />
 <Style TargetType="ListBox" BasedOn="{StaticResource {telerik:ThemeResourceKey ThemeType=telerik:Office_BlueTheme, ElementType=ListBox}}"/>
 <Style TargetType="ListBoxItem" BasedOn="{StaticResource {telerik:ThemeResourceKey ThemeType=telerik:Office_BlueTheme, ElementType=ListBoxItem}}" />
 <Style TargetType="Button" BasedOn="{StaticResource {telerik:ThemeResourceKey ThemeType=telerik:Office_BlueTheme, ElementType=Button}}" />
 <Style TargetType="RadioButton" BasedOn="{StaticResource {telerik:ThemeResourceKey ThemeType=telerik:Office_BlueTheme, ElementType=RadioButton}}" />
 <Style TargetType="CheckBox" BasedOn="{StaticResource {telerik:ThemeResourceKey ThemeType=telerik:Office_BlueTheme, ElementType=CheckBox}}" />
 </Application.Resources>

[Nikolay]

Hello Simon,

I deeply apologize for the late reply.

Let me elaborate a bit further on our theming mechanism and why we chose to implement it the way it is. I believe this will shed some more light on the concerns you have.

We have implemented our own theming mechanism that allows our users to easily apply our themes to their applications. The mechanism does not work with the default Microsoft theming though. So far we have not found a demand for the Microsoft themes other than PresentationFramework.Aero - it matches our Vista theme. It seems the Luna, Royale and Classic are not widely used, hence we have not put them with a high priority in the plan.

We share codebase between our Silverlight and WPF bundles and this causes some limitations. As a result the themes cannot be applied to Microsoft controls unless set implicitly or through StyleManager.Theme. Therefore, the hard-coded theme for CheckBox, RadioButton, ScrollBar etc. is required.

We would recommend you to chose a Telerik Theme and use it in your application. Hard-coding the theme will stop your application from applying changes done in the OS colors and theme to your application UI. Again, this is not a commonly requested feature and we do not have it in the backlog for the time being. However, we will definitely look into the interest this will arouse and consider it for the next releases.

I hope this information explains our decisions and the course of action we took.

Greetings,
Nick
the Telerik team

[Usame Esendir]

It is really a strange situtation. I am using telerik tools but unfortunelty when it comes to style and theme issues telerik is no good.
I use telerik combobox, wpf multiline textbox and wpf list view on the same screen, when customer changes the theme of application. List view and textbox is old same way but combobox becomes black. How beautiful it looks!

Why don't you extend all WPF standard toolbox and just apply telerik themes, so that we would be sure all the controls will be in same color after changing the theme.

[Pana]

Hi,

There is too little demand for complete coverage of telerik themes over the toolbox controls. Also we have Rad equivalents for most of the MS controls anyway. I am sorry for the inconvenience but if you want to use runtime theme switching I would suggest you to use only rad controls with exception for ScrollViewers and TextBoxes.

Best wishes,
Pana
the Telerik team