Base WPF functionality for writing custom controls

Table of content

About
Sample
Build requirements
Structure CustomControlBaseLib Solution
Project Status
Copyright

About

It can be quite a lot of work to support resizing, padding, different fonts, etc. when you write a WPF custom control. The main class in the library CustomControlBase provides these functionalities and also drawing directly to the screen for your custom control. A few other methods in this library are also helpful when writing WPF controls, like GlyphDrawer which allows to measure text length and writing text directly to a Control's DrawingContext.

Sample

CustomControlBase can be used for any custom control you write. CustomControlSample in CustomControlSampleLib provides a detailed example how to add Visuals, FramworkElemtens, Controls, etc. and how to directly draw to the screen can be easily combined. Left in the sample is a TextBox and right is a code drawn ellipse with the same (!) size like the TextBox. A possible use case would be a graph together with a legend.

One challenge here is the sizing and placing of the control's content, depending on Alignment (stretched or not), TextBox.FontSize and available space given by the Window. CustomControlBase and CustomControlSample also support Border and Padding. Font and BackGround are inherited in a custom control from Control, but they don't do anything out of the box. CustomControlBase adds the missing functionality.

Build requirements

net5.0-windows or later

Structure Solution CustomControlBaseLib

Library CustomControlBaseLib

The only library needed to be referenced from your own code, providing:

Class CustomControlBase

Base class for custom controls with functionality added for Children, drawing, Border, Padding and Background.

Helper Class GlyphDrawer

Writes text to a DrawingContext. Can also be used to calculate the length of text.

Helper Class DependencyObjectExtensions

Contains the methods FindVisualChildren() and FindVisualChild()

Library CustomControlSampleLib

The class CustomControlSample.cs shows how to use the class CustomControlBase with detailed instructions. Copy CustomControlSample code into your own custom control when you start to write it.

Library CustomControlSample

WPF Core application displaying CustomControlSample

Project Status

Completed and stable

Copyright

Copyright 2020 Jürg Peter Huber, Singapore.

Licensed under the Creative Commons 0 license