Vista - Expose properties of "sub controls" in control template

So, I'm playing around with XAML and EID, and although I'm not sure whether I
completely understand the concepts yet, I have a question.

So I'm creating a control template. This specific control template is for a
button, and I put a menu in it, and on the menu I made another control
template for the menu item, which noiw has a text box and a button on it.
Pretty useles, but I'm trying to get a feel for the limitations of the system.

Now, on the form, I also have another templated control, a ListBox where I
added a MediaElement in the background, so that it plays a movie behind the
list box items. Again, fairly useless, but it looks cool.

So, in my useless appplication, what I'd like to do is whenever someone
clicks the button on the menu item, I'd like to read the value from the text
box beside it and apply it to the mediaelement in the listbox, so I could
change the video on demand.

Obviosuly, this requires working from the top level of the heirarchy. The
problem I'm having is that I can get all kinds of messages, like whether the
text box has changed, or the button has been pressed, in the top level of the
heirarchy, but it seems fairly difficult to actually read the text boxe's
value from the top level. Specifically, the path of access (programmtically
in C#) isn't very clear.

What I'd likie to do is e

Your message cut off, so I am not 100% sure what you are trying to do. But,
see if this gets close:

1) In code you can attach an event handler to each button on the menu of
each list item.
2) The handler for this can use the source argument to locate the button
that was pressed and obtain its content to get to the text within the
button. Or, get is parent then get the children to get to the text, etc.
3) If you place the control template as a window resource, you may be able
to attach the events to methods on the window code behind in XAML. You need
to play with there you declare the template and what object it will attach
the handler method to. There are several places you can declare the
template (window resource, style resource, inline definition on an enclosing
element with a type as the name, etc).
4) You can bind from the text element to an attached property on the button
as well to remove the navigation from the code, but you will need to create
the attached property in code.

Michael



"Matt Mitchell" <MattMitchell@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:7C20A777-1398-4588-8FE3-4579AFB4EE10@microsoft.com...
> So, I'm playing around with XAML and EID, and although I'm not sure
> whether I
> completely understand the concepts yet, I have a question.
>
> So I'm creating a control template. This specific control template is for
> a
> button, and I put a menu in it, and on the menu I made another control
> template for the menu item, which noiw has a text box and a button on it.
> Pretty useles, but I'm trying to get a feel for the limitations of the
> system.
>
> Now, on the form, I also have another templated control, a ListBox where I
> added a MediaElement in the background, so that it plays a movie behind
> the
> list box items. Again, fairly useless, but it looks cool.
>
> So, in my useless appplication, what I'd like to do is whenever someone
> clicks the button on the menu item, I'd like to read the value from the
> text
> box beside it and apply it to the mediaelement in the listbox, so I could
> change the video on demand.
>
> Obviosuly, this requires working from the top level of the heirarchy. The
> problem I'm having is that I can get all kinds of messages, like whether
> the
> text box has changed, or the button has been pressed, in the top level of
> the
> heirarchy, but it seems fairly difficult to actually read the text boxe's
> value from the top level. Specifically, the path of access
> (programmtically
> in C#) isn't very clear.
>
> What I'd likie to do is e

Actually, you can use Control.Template.FindName(String name,
FrameworkElement templatedParent) method to Find the element under a
specified
ControlTemplate, you should specify the name parameter which is associated
with the id of the element to be found, and a templatedParent parameter
which is associated with the parent which has this ControlTemplate as its
Template, after you find the wanted element, you can do any thing meaningful
with this element, for instance, changing the properties of this element etc
etc.

Hope this helps
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Mitchell" <MattMitchell@discussions.microsoft.com>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windows.developer.winfx.avalon
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 1:15 AM
Subject: Expose properties of "sub controls" in control template


> So, I'm playing around with XAML and EID, and although I'm not sure
> whether I
> completely understand the concepts yet, I have a question.
>
> So I'm creating a control template. This specific control template is for
> a
> button, and I put a menu in it, and on the menu I made another control
> template for the menu item, which noiw has a text box and a button on it.
> Pretty useles, but I'm trying to get a feel for the limitations of the
> system.
>
> Now, on the form, I also have another templated control, a ListBox where I
> added a MediaElement in the background, so that it plays a movie behind
> the
> list box items. Again, fairly useless, but it looks cool.
>
> So, in my useless appplication, what I'd like to do is whenever someone
> clicks the button on the menu item, I'd like to read the value from the
> text
> box beside it and apply it to the mediaelement in the listbox, so I could
> change the video on demand.
>
> Obviosuly, this requires working from the top level of the heirarchy. The
> problem I'm having is that I can get all kinds of messages, like whether
> the
> text box has changed, or the button has been pressed, in the top level of
> the
> heirarchy, but it seems fairly difficult to actually read the text boxe's
> value from the top level. Specifically, the path of access
> (programmtically
> in C#) isn't very clear.
>
> What I'd likie to do is e