by Jim
Jun 20, 2008 9:12 AM
When templating WPF controls, it's easiest to start with the default template defined in the framework - especially if you only need to make minor changes.
This isn't terribly hard to google, but it can't be blogged enough :-)
I'll give you a few options - pick your poison.
Quick and dirty output to the console
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
using (TextWriter writer = new StringWriter(sb))
{
System.Windows.Markup.XamlWriter.Save(MyControl.Template, writer);
}
Console.WriteLine(sb.ToString());
The output of that is just a single (long and unreadable) line of xaml; it's nice to have the output on multiple lines with indentation.
Nicely formatted output to the console
System.Text.StringBuilder sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
System.Xml.XmlWriterSettings settings = new System.Xml.XmlWriterSettings();
settings.Indent = true;
using (System.Xml.XmlWriter xmlWriter = System.Xml.XmlWriter.Create(sb, settings))
{
System.Windows.Markup.XamlWriter.Save(MyControl.Template, xmlWriter);
}
Console.WriteLine(sb.ToString());
Formatted output to a file
System.Xml.XmlWriterSettings settings = new System.Xml.XmlWriterSettings();
settings.Indent = true;
using (System.Xml.XmlWriter xmlWriter =
System.Xml.XmlWriter.Create("C:\\Temp\\Template.xml", settings))
{
System.Windows.Markup.XamlWriter.Save(MyControl.Template, xmlWriter);
}
The last one is my favorite; it's easy to open the file in Visual Studio and check it out, if you're just looking to see how something was done.