In a previous post I looked at why WPF was something to really take a look at. I posted a bare bones WPF page that just contained a status bar. In this post, I’d like to show how to spruce the WPF up with just a little bit of effort (and hopefully to demonstrate why I really like it).
Anyway, without further ado, here is the updated class:
<Window x:Class="WorkforcePF.Window1" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Title="Main Window" Height="450" Width="600"> <Window.Resources> <LinearGradientBrush x:Key="MyBlueGradientBrush" EndPoint="0,1" StartPoint="0,0"> <GradientStop Color="#FFE3EFFF" Offset="0"/> <GradientStop Color="#FFD4E5FC" Offset="0.2"/> <GradientStop Color="#FFB3CFF5" Offset="0.6"/> <GradientStop Color="#FF89B3ED" Offset="1"/> </LinearGradientBrush> </Window.Resources> <DockPanel> <StatusBar Name="statusBar1" Background="{StaticResource MyBlueGradientBrush}" Height="20" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" DockPanel.Dock="Bottom"> <StatusBar.ItemsPanel> <ItemsPanelTemplate> <Grid> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height="*"/> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <ColumnDefinition Width="4*" /> <ColumnDefinition Width="*" /> </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> </Grid> </ItemsPanelTemplate> </StatusBar.ItemsPanel> <StatusBarItem>Ready</StatusBarItem> <StatusBarItem Grid.Column="1"> <TextBlock TextAlignment="Right">Set</TextBlock> </StatusBarItem> </StatusBar> </DockPanel> </Window>
As you can see, we have declared a style (similar to the way you think of styles in CSS). The background of the statusbar is set to this style and, lo-and-behold, the status bar now has a nice blue gradient. In the next post, we’ll look at adding extra elements and see how the styling can help it to stand out more.