Why doesn't WPF show Windows 8 style buttons in Windows 8

Question

This is a Windows 8 style button:

And this is a button in .NET 4.5 WPF app:

Any ideas why WPF doesn't show the native Windows 8 style buttons? Is there a way to fix this?

Here is something similiar...not sure if it will help or not. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3458382/metro-like-theme-for-wpf — Anonymous, Jan 07 '13 at 19:20

CC Inc · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-09T03:32:45.920

9

What you can do is use a custom WPF styling from HERE.

Below is a screenshot of the styles as applied to the same WPF application in multiple states. The top is obviously Aero themed, and the bottom set is with the newly applied styles.

And here is a link to the XAML.

edited Oct 09 '14 at 03:32

answered Jan 07 '13 at 19:22

CC Inc

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These are some very nice styles. – Rudi Visser Feb 11 '13 at 11:25
@RudiVisser Thanks for creating them. `:)` – Elmo May 22 '14 at 18:37
1

The styles don't work with other themes though. Colors are hard coded rather than use SystemColors – Guy Godin Jun 12 '14 at 08:19
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The XAML link is broken – smukov Oct 07 '14 at 08:06
@GuyGodin: The colours cannot be changed, so it's okay to keep them fixed. But they're still not accurate, I needed to change them all from real Windows 8.1 screenshots. And RadioButton and CheckBox also need some fixup, which is not included in this theme. – ygoe Nov 16 '14 at 20:23

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 07 '13 at 19:37

WPF does not use any native Windows controls - it comes with its own controls and styles for different Windows versions. On Windows 7 you can find the following assemblies

PresentationFramework.Aero.dll
PresentationFramework.Classic.dll
PresentationFramework.Luna.dll
PresentationFramework.Royale.dll

and I guess there is a new one for Windows 8. Because WPF is not build upon native controls it is possible to have a XP-style WPF application on Windows 7 and a Windows-7-style application on Windows XP.

If you want to match the native Windows 8 UI better than what WPF offers out of the box, you will have to create your own styles - probably based on the styles provided by WPF.

Why doesn't WPF show Windows 8 style buttons in Windows 8

2 Answers2

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