[Breaking change] Theming changed once more

[batzen]

ThemeManager was moved from Fluent.Ribbon to ControlzEx.
This was done to be able to share one common ThemeManager between Fluent.Ribbon and MahApps.Metro.

This breaking change will be part of version 8.0.

[pschimmel]

Hi!
Does that influence the way the ThemeManager is used?
If I upgrade Fluent from version 7.0.1 to 8.0.0, will I have to change my code?

[batzen]

You will have to change your code as ThemeManger is no longer a static class. So you have to use ThemeManger.Current in 8.0.

[pschimmel]

Hi!

To do some testing, I updated our application to version 8.0.0 today, but I did not manage to load the theme file. Before (version 7.0.1), Before, I loaded the theme at runtime from a resource file and switched to it:

ThemeManager.AddTheme(new Uri("pack://application:,,,/RibbonStuff;component/RibbonTheme.xaml"));
ThemeManager.ChangeTheme(Application.Current, "MyTheme");

In the new Manager the AddTheme overload that takes an Uri is not there anymore. What is the preferred way to accomplish the same?

[batzen]

That depends on what's in your theme and what you want to modify. Is it a complete theme, or did you use it to add additional things?

[pschimmel]

It is supposed to be an complete, independent theme, not containing anything else.
I basically took the file Theme.Template.xaml, renamed and modified it manually to match our color scheme.

[batzen]

Then it's quite easy and the following code should be enough:

var source = new Uri("pack://application:,,,/RibbonStuff;component/RibbonTheme.xaml");
var newTheme = new Theme(new LibraryTheme(source, null));
ThemeManager.Current.ChangeTheme(Application.Current, newTheme);

[pschimmel]

Thank you for the quick response.

When using your code snippet, I first got an exception in RuntimeThemeGenerator, line 100.

In the ControlzEx source code, I saw that the problem is that the BaseColor is not set and I added the following lines to my RibbonTheme.xaml file:

<system:String x:Key="Theme.BaseColorScheme">Light</system:String>
<system:String x:Key="Theme.ColorScheme">Blue</system:String>
<system:String x:Key="Theme.AlternativeColorScheme">Amber</system:String>

I had no idea what to put there, so I just picked names from the built-in themes.

Then there is no exception anymore and Ribbon resources are added to the resources of my application. However the resources defined in my theme are not used.

To test this, I defined the Fluent.Ribbon.Brushes.Button.MouseOver.Background brush with a green color, but the value contained in the resource dictionary is #330078D7.

Are the defined values for BaseColorScheme and so on OK?

As I don't really have to change the theme at runtime, I just added the ribbon resources to the merged dictionary of my application and it worked for me, but the behavior is still strange.

[batzen]

At which level do you load the regular ribbon resources? If it's on the window level you have to change the theme there and not on the application level, which i suggested.
Could you also check the return value of ChangeTheme? It should return your newly applied theme on success.
If your issue persists a repro would help.

[pschimmel]

I'm setting the resources only once, on the application level.
The theme returned by ChangeTheme also contains the wrong colors.

[batzen]

Could you create a small repro then?

[pschimmel]

Here's the repo:

FluentTest_Theming.zip

Just start the application it will show two message boxes containing one sample color.
After creating the theme, the sample color I added is OK.
But after changing the theme, that color is not used.

[batzen]

Ah, ok.
That's because you have to use var newTheme = new Theme(new LibraryTheme(source, RibbonLibraryThemeProvider.DefaultInstance)); passing RibbonLibraryThemeProvider.DefaultInstance here is important as otherwise the ThemeManager thinks your theme is for a different component and provides a theme that matches Theme.BaseColorScheme and Theme.ColorScheme from RibbonLibraryThemeProvider.DefaultInstance.
I forgot to mention that when posting my sample code.
Beside that, your theme is not complete and is missing things like WhiteColor, BlackColor etc. ;-)