Why is my RibbonWindow not themed correctly?

Question

Working with the ribboncontrolslibrary, when I run my application the title bar looks like W98 application,. How can I make it look pretty?

Edit: It seems that has something to do with the theme used on windows.

any help would be appreciated.

alt text http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/8188/321321.jpg

<r:RibbonWindow x:Class="Produccion_Dampers.main"
 xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
 xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
 xmlns:r="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Windows.Controls.Ribbon;assembly=RibbonControlsLibrary"
 Title="Window1"
 Height="600"
 Width="800">
    <DockPanel>
        <r:Ribbon DockPanel.Dock="Top" Title="my App looks like s***t">
        </r:Ribbon>
    </DockPanel>
</r:RibbonWindow>

+1 for "My app looks like shit". – Mathias Lykkegaard Lorenzen Apr 10 '12 at 00:32 — Mathias Lykkegaard Lorenzen, Apr 10 '12 at 00:32

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 28 '10 at 21:27

2

If you are running a custom theme on your machine, WPF windows default to the "Classic" theme.

As I understand, your options are then limited because the title bar is non-client to your application -- it is rendered by the OS (why then it can't adopt the custom theme, I don't know).

you can use p/invoke to do some nasty stuff
you can create a borderless window and fake the title bar yourself
you can see if the (rather old) info here does anything good for you : http://www.browsoft.com/tutorials/DefaultTheme.html

(If the last one works, it means my understanding about rendering the title bar is incorrect.)

answered Jan 28 '10 at 21:27

Jay

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...oh, you could also put all of your WPF stuff inside a WinForms window. – Jay Jan 28 '10 at 21:28
I could but then the ribbon wouldn't "fuse" with the titlebar – Luiscencio Jan 28 '10 at 21:49
do you have an example of the p/invoke solution? – Luiscencio Jan 28 '10 at 22:36
1

Well, I found this MSDN page about drawing a custom frame, and it includes information about drawing the caption in the system theme font, but not specifically re-drawing the frame with a particular theme. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb688195(VS.85).aspx – Jay Jan 29 '10 at 16:26
thanks, this looks very promising, I might be writing my own ribbon now, post as an answer to accept it as an alternative!!! – Luiscencio Jan 29 '10 at 16:34

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 29 '10 at 19:06

(from my previous comment)

You can draw a custom window frame as described in this MSDN article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb688195(VS.85).aspx, which includes information about drawing the window caption with the system theme's font (which might provide clues about accessing other theme information).

Why is my RibbonWindow not themed correctly?

2 Answers2