How to get Themes working inside an ElementHost (FormsIntegration)

Hi Jurgen,

Our themes just set the App.Resources collection when you set the ThemeManager.CurrentTheme property.  Perhaps when used in an ElementHost, the Application object never instantiates an Application.Current value though since it's not a WPF app.  And if that is the case, I'm not sure if you can manually create one either.

You might be able to use the ThemeManager.SetTheme method directly on your root WPF control in the ElementHost, and have it work that way.  If you have more than one ElementHost though, I'd imagine that you'd need to do that in each root WPF control in an ElementHost.  It's a pain but there's probably no other way if there is no current Application for them to inherit resources from.

Thanks for that reply. I've been working with WPF since a few months only..

I have it working now.. BUT with some caveats..

1) Updating the ThemeManager must be done at the very start of my code, before creating any UI elements.
     AFAIK  Office doesnot expose Theme property nor ThemeChange event but I read it from the registry and statically set the my UI theme.

2) Standard office themes appear to have no effect BUT custom themes based on standard officethemes work correctly. 
No problem as I want to control Tint anyway.

    ThemesOfficeThemeCatalogRegistrar.Register()
    ThemeManager.RegisterThemeCatalog(New TintedThemeCatalog("MyOfficeBlue", ThemeName.OfficeBlue.ToString, Colors.SteelBlue))
    ThemeManager.RegisterThemeCatalog(New TintedThemeCatalog("MyOfficeBlack", ThemeName.OfficeBlack.ToString(), Colors.Black))

3)  Setting AreNativeThemesEnabled in my initializer appears to have no effect BUT works fine when my usercontrol.xaml sets it with markup.

4)  Scrollbar default style override created in my own resourceDictionary. I still need to do some work on the Itemspresenter for combobox :-)

5)  I use SetTheme on the ElementHost.Child via an eventhandler...  and it inherits fine in the content.
     your answer made me realize I have to research FormsIntegration to see how ElementHost implements the Application object

Thanks

2) The standard office themes  

hi, please kindly help. i av tried all possible best but i just can't change the theme in my wpf window to officetheme 2010.

here is my sample code below:

my:RibbonWindow x:Class="LearningPrismShell.Shell"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:py="clr-namespace:ActiproSoftware.Windows.Controls.Ribbon;assembly=ActiproSoftware.Ribbon.Wpf"
xmlns:my ="http://schemas.actiprosoftware.com/winfx/xaml/ribbon"
xmlns:prism="http://www.codeplex.com/prism"
xmlns:themes="http://schemas.actiprosoftware.com/winfx/xaml/themes"
themes:ThemeManager.Theme="Office2007Black"
xmlns:navigation="http://schemas.actiprosoftware.com/winfx/xaml/navigation"
Title="LearningPrism" Height="350" Width="800" WindowState="Maximized">

after running the application is just the same old window.....

please i need it a quick reply...thanks

One thing we've seen when using WPF controls in WinForms apps is that you should also make sure a WPF Application is created.  Code like this will do it:

​if (System.Windows.Application.Current == null) {
    wpfApplication = new System.Windows.Application();
    wpfApplication.ShutdownMode = System.Windows.ShutdownMode.OnExplicitShutdown;
}

Store wpfApplication as a static variable.  Then in your final WinForms app shutdown code, call wpfApplication.Shutdown().

Maybe that will help?

Also a ribbonwindow inside an elementhost may not be ideal...

Afaik Elementhost s/b used for controls, not windows as the window will be drawn and handled by Forms, not wpf. I've gotten pretty handy with Excel and WPF, but please note there are many many caveats. Biggest problem is running input elements (combo/textbox) in non-modal taskpanes or windows.

Jurgen