I am trying to load a custom control library via reflection in windows 8 Metro C# App, the library is loaded but the styles specified in generic.xaml are not loaded, eventually I tried to load the generic.xaml by making it as an Embedded resource and ,then
extracted the Generic.xaml to a location and supplied it as uri of a ResourceDictionary object, but it throws an error
"Failed to create a 'System.Type' from the text local:CustomControl1" , I cannot create a nuget package or extension SDK as unfortunately that is not my requirement, Below sample code I wrote to copy the generic.xaml and load
it in a resource dictionary.
public sealed class
CustomControl1 : Control
{
public CustomControl1()
{
this.DefaultStyleKey
= typeof(CustomControl1);
Assembly
CurrentAssembly = typeof(CustomControl1).GetTypeInfo().Assembly;
var names
= CurrentAssembly.GetManifestResourceNames();
var stream
= CurrentAssembly.GetManifestResourceStream(names.First());
//generic.xaml is an embedded resource in the current assembly
if (stream
!= null)
{
//created new generic.xaml here
var file
= ApplicationData.Current.LocalFolder.CreateFileAsync("Generic.xaml",
CreationCollisionOption.ReplaceExisting).Completed
= (o, a)
=>
{
var storageFile = o.GetResults();
var s = storageFile.OpenStreamForWriteAsync().Result;
var length = (int)stream.Length;
byte[] bytes =
new byte[length];
int output = stream.Read(bytes,
0, length);
s.Write(bytes,
0, length);
s.Flush();
s.Dispose();
var asyncResult = this.Dispatcher.RunAsync(Windows.UI.Core.CoreDispatcherPriority.Normal,
() =>
{
var resourceDict = new
ResourceDictionary();
var uri = new
Uri("ms-appdata:///local/"
+ storageFile.Name);
resourceDict.Source
= uri;
});
};
}
}
// OnApplyTemplate is not called without loading the style from generic.xaml
protected override
void OnApplyTemplate()
{
base.OnApplyTemplate();
}
}
The below code I wrote in the custom control library's constructor, so that the control template can be set without generic.xaml
Here since the attribute TargeType="local:CustomControl1" is not present the control gets loaded properly, here since I loaded the style in the constructor, the OnApplyTemplate gets called
StringBuilder sb = new
StringBuilder();
sb.Append(@"<ControlTemplate
xmlns=""http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation""
xmlns:x=""http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml""
xmlns:d=""http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008""
xmlns:mc=""http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"">");
sb.Append(@"<Border Background=""{TemplateBinding
Background}""
BorderBrush=""{TemplateBinding BorderBrush}""
BorderThickness=""{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}"">
<Grid>
<Button x:Name=""Tbx1"" Content=""Hello World"" Foreground=""HotPink""
HorizontalAlignment=""Stretch"" VerticalAlignment=""Stretch""/>
</Grid>
</Border>");
sb.Append(@"</ControlTemplate>");
this.Template =
(ControlTemplate)XamlReader.Load(sb.ToString());
but the problem is loading all the styles using XamlReader does not seem to be a good idea. As there may be various dependent styles which too have to be loaded.
I am looking to distribute my customcontrol and the user should be able to use it with supporting assets such as images localization files and styles in a separate folder, Has anyone done this before for windows store apps?
