Setting the style of a WPF UserControl

Question

I know I can set the style of a UserControl like so in the control by adding an attribute:

Style="{StaticResource MyStyle}"

And having a style in my ResourceDictionary that looks something like the following:

<Style x:Key="MyStyle" TargetType="{x:Type UserControl}">
    <Style.Resources>
        <Style TargetType="Label">
            <!-- Label Setters -->
        </Style>
        <Style TargetType="TextBox">
            <!-- TextBox Setters -->
        </Style>
    </Style.Resources>
</Style>

But is there a way I can set the style of the UserControl in the ResourceDictionary directly like:

<Style x:Key="MyStyle" TargetType="{x:Type MyControl}">

Essentially my question is, can I apply the style directly to the control instead of to the controls components?

EDIT: What I am trying to accomplish is something like the following:

<Style x:Key="MyStyle" TargetType="{x:Type MyControl}">
    <Setter Property="Background" Value="Black"/>
</Style>
<Style x:Key="{x:Type MyControl}" TargetType="{x:Type MyControl}" BasedOn="{StaticResource MyStyle}"/>

Where the second line applies the style to all controls in the application, if you do something similar with a normal control this approach works.

However this only sets the Background of the UserControl , so how can I apply that same background to its components.

How can I do it with the UserControl ?

Answer 1

You can directly set the UserControl's Style like this:

<UserControl x:Class="MyNamespace.MyControl" xmlns:local="MyNamespace" ...>
    <UserControl.Style>
        <Style>
            <Setter Property="local:MyControl.MyProperty" Value="..."/>
            ...
        </Style>
    </UserControl.Style>
</UserControl>

or like this:

<UserControl x:Class="MyNamespace.MyControl" xmlns:local="MyNamespace" ...>
    <UserControl.Style>
        <Style TargetType="local:MyControl">
            <Setter Property="MyProperty" Value="..."/>
            ...
        </Style>
    </UserControl.Style>
</UserControl>

A default Style in the UserControl's Resources should also work:

<UserControl x:Class="MyNamespace.MyControl" xmlns:local="MyNamespace" ...>
    <UserControl.Resources>
        <Style TargetType="local:MyControl">
            <Setter Property="MyProperty" Value="..."/>
            ...
        </Style>
    </UserControl.Resources>
</UserControl>

Answer 2

You need to remove the x:Key from your defined style so that it can be applied universally to all controls of the same type as what is defined in the TargetType .

To quote from MSDN for Style.TargetType Property :

Setting the TargetType property to the TextBlock type without setting an x:Key implicitly sets the x:Key to {x:Type TextBlock}. This also means that if you give the [...] Style an x:Key value of anything other than {x:Type TextBlock}, the Style would not be applied to all TextBlock elements automatically. Instead, you need to apply the style to the TextBlock elements explicitly.

Answer 3

To style all controls, add your ResourceDictionary to the resources of your App.xaml.

<Application.Resources>
 <!-- Your Resources for the whole application here -->
</Application.Resources>

If your open your Mainwindow with the App...

<Application ...
MainWindow="MainWindow">

or during the startup event...

<Application ...
MainWindow="MainWindow">
Startup="Application_Startup">

the resources are available in every control of your MainWindow.

To set the style for a specific usercontrol look here: Set Style for user control

Answer 4

in your user control xaml place the style inside the resources tag:

<UserControl>
    <UserControl.Resources>
       <Style ...</Style>
    </UserControl.Resources>

    //.. my other components
</UserControl>

Answer 5

Necro answer for a special case. If the user control is selected via a DataTemplate resource in another WPF control or window, WPF may not automagically apply a default style from an imported resource dictionary. However, you can apply named style resource after importing a resource dictionary.

<UserControl.Resources>
    <ResourceDictionary>
        <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
            <ResourceDictionary Source="../../Resources/ResourceDictionary.xaml" />
        </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
    </ResourceDictionary>
</UserControl.Resources>
<UserControl.Style>
    <Binding Source="{StaticResource MyUserControlStyle}"></Binding>
</UserControl.Style>