CONTROLLERMATE TEMPLATES HOW TO
CONTROLLERMATE TEMPLATES CODE
CONTROLLERMATE TEMPLATES SERIES

Once we are done with our demonstration, you will be able to create your custom controls very easily.

CONTROLLERMATE TEMPLATES SERIES

Hope all the chapters of the series helped you a lot to understand the Custom Control. It's the time again to tell you 'What's Next?'.

CONTROLLERMATE TEMPLATES CODE

Now you will be able to use them in the code whenever you require them. This null check is require only once if you place them in the OnApplyTemplate() method. Hence, just check for null instance and throw a NullReferenceException to the user. Because, it may change or remove in future from XAML mistakenly. It is always recommended to check whether the retrieved instance of the template part is available or null, before doing any operation. Here is the actual code snippet, for your reference: The method will search for the named template part and fetches the instance of the same.įor our example, we will get all the three template child instance and will store them in the declared member variables to use them later. You have to specify the name of the template part i.e. Inside the OnApplyTemplate() method, you can call GetTemplateChild(.) method to get the instance of the template part. So, whenever the template applied, you have to refresh the instances. This method gets call automatically when you apply a template to your custom control. You can get the instance of the parts there. This is part of the base class 'Control'. So what to do? There is overridable method named 'OnApplyTemplate()'. In constructor, you may get them as null if they are not already loaded in memory.' Before describing more, I want to tell you one thing: 'Don't get the instance in the constructor. To make you familiar with it, we will use it at the first load. Try to get the instance locally whenever require but if you are accessing them from multiple place inside your control, it is recommended to load them at the beginning or at the time of first access. It's time for us to get the instance of the part, so that, we can do whatever we need with them. Declaring as public will give your user direct access to the template part and thus your control will never be secure. Never declare as Public because, it will make your control vulnerable. The below screenshot will help you to understand:Īlways make sure that, you are declaring them as Private member. In this example, we used three parts called 'Border', 'TextBlock' and 'ContentPresenter'. We need to declare the member variables now to store the instance of the template parts. If you need them in multiple times, better declare them as member variable and use throughout the life of the control.ĭeclaring Private members for Part instance Remember that, only get the instance whenever require. Once you marked the template parts in the class, you can declare the member variables to store the instance of those parts, so that, you can access them easily. Also, this is beneficial for you to easily access the parts in the file. This is to make sure that, the meta data of the class shows them properly and your user can easily understand which UI elements you used there. In the control's class, we initialize them with the attribute called 'TemplatePart' as shown below. Generally, we prefix their name with 'PART_'. These are the UI elements available in your style of the custom control. In our previous article, we discussed about template parts. We will use the same example here which will give you better visualization on the sample code. Once you are familiar with the previous code, lets start with this one.

CONTROLLERMATE TEMPLATES HOW TO

How to implement Template Binding in Silverlight Custom Control?.How to design a Custom Control by editing the Part Template?.How to create a Custom Control in Silverlight?.If you didn't read them or want to brush up before starting this chapter, find them here: Those will help you to understand the context of this one very easily. I hope, you read my previous three articles. This article will help you to understand accessibility of the template parts from the code. Hope, you read the previous three articles and familiar with the Custom control as of now. In this article, we will learn how to access the template parts from code behind to do various operations in the UI front. Here is the last chapter of the series for Silverlight Custom Control.

Controllermate templates