Vista - Changing the drawing style of a button from code ( c++ or c# )

What's the best way to change the way a button draws itself using only code?
I've tried a few things and none of them do exactly what I'd like.

- Setting the Background property ( either directly or with a Style ).
Doesn't change the background color when the button is shown highlighted (
due to the mouse being over it ).

- Deriving from Button and overriding OnRender. It appears as though you can
only add to the drawing - the original drawing code is still executed - the
documentation says as much as well.

- Using a decorator. I don't really understand decorators but this seemed to
have pretty much the same effect as the previous solution. I could add my own
drawing to the decorator but the original button still drew as well.

So is there a way to accomplish this? What I'm trying to do is to style a
button that looks like the 'red x' close button on a window. I'm sure I could
acccomplish it by deriving a new class from UIElement and completely
re-implementing the button behaviour but it seems like just changing the
drawing of the button is all I really need to do. I'm using C++/CLI but a C#
example is easily translatable as well.

Thanks-

John Dunn

Hi John,

I would suggest doing so the same way you would do it in XAML. By assigning
a new Control Template / Style.

Here's how you might replace the button's template with a Red Rectangle (in
C#).

Button button = ...;

ControlTemplate template = new ControlTemplate(typeof(Button));
FrameworkElementFactory rect = new
FrameworkElementFactory(typeof(Rectangle));
rect.SetValue(Rectangle.FillProperty, Brushes.Red);
template.VisualTree = rect;
button.Template = template;

- Doug

"John Dunn" <jhndnn@community.nospam> wrote in message
newsF705F00-A994-44D6-B985-B2D5E06F020D@microsoft.com...
> What's the best way to change the way a button draws itself using only
> code?
> I've tried a few things and none of them do exactly what I'd like.
>
> - Setting the Background property ( either directly or with a Style ).
> Doesn't change the background color when the button is shown highlighted (
> due to the mouse being over it ).
>
> - Deriving from Button and overriding OnRender. It appears as though you
> can
> only add to the drawing - the original drawing code is still executed -
> the
> documentation says as much as well.
>
> - Using a decorator. I don't really understand decorators but this seemed
> to
> have pretty much the same effect as the previous solution. I could add my
> own
> drawing to the decorator but the original button still drew as well.
>
> So is there a way to accomplish this? What I'm trying to do is to style a
> button that looks like the 'red x' close button on a window. I'm sure I
> could
> acccomplish it by deriving a new class from UIElement and completely
> re-implementing the button behaviour but it seems like just changing the
> drawing of the button is all I really need to do. I'm using C++/CLI but a
> C#
> example is easily translatable as well.
>
> Thanks-
>
> John Dunn

Thanks-

That helped quite a bit. Trying to use a lot of the WPF stuff without using
XAML is like stumbing around in the dark.

"Douglas Stockwell" wrote:

> Hi John,
>
> I would suggest doing so the same way you would do it in XAML. By assigning
> a new Control Template / Style.
>
> Here's how you might replace the button's template with a Red Rectangle (in
> C#).
>
> Button button = ...;
>
> ControlTemplate template = new ControlTemplate(typeof(Button));
> FrameworkElementFactory rect = new
> FrameworkElementFactory(typeof(Rectangle));
> rect.SetValue(Rectangle.FillProperty, Brushes.Red);
> template.VisualTree = rect;
> button.Template = template;
>
> - Doug
>
> "John Dunn" <jhndnn@community.nospam> wrote in message
> newsF705F00-A994-44D6-B985-B2D5E06F020D@microsoft.com...
> > What's the best way to change the way a button draws itself using only
> > code?
> > I've tried a few things and none of them do exactly what I'd like.
> >
> > - Setting the Background property ( either directly or with a Style ).
> > Doesn't change the background color when the button is shown highlighted (
> > due to the mouse being over it ).
> >
> > - Deriving from Button and overriding OnRender. It appears as though you
> > can
> > only add to the drawing - the original drawing code is still executed -
> > the
> > documentation says as much as well.
> >
> > - Using a decorator. I don't really understand decorators but this seemed
> > to
> > have pretty much the same effect as the previous solution. I could add my
> > own
> > drawing to the decorator but the original button still drew as well.
> >
> > So is there a way to accomplish this? What I'm trying to do is to style a
> > button that looks like the 'red x' close button on a window. I'm sure I
> > could
> > acccomplish it by deriving a new class from UIElement and completely
> > re-implementing the button behaviour but it seems like just changing the
> > drawing of the button is all I really need to do. I'm using C++/CLI but a
> > C#
> > example is easily translatable as well.
> >
> > Thanks-
> >
> > John Dunn
>
>