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Introduction

In WPF, we have a number of different brushes to use as background and fills for XAML controls. Unfortunately, in Silverlight, there is only a limited subset of the WPF brushes: some color brushes, ImageBrush, and VideoBrush. There is no DrawingBrush in Silverlight. Also, it looks like Microsoft has no plans to add this type of a brush in future versions of Silverlight.

Are we really in need of a DrawingBrush in Silverlight? The answer is "yes", if we want to paint controls with shapes or create a hatch background. Today, we'll build a basic version of a Silverlight DrawingBrush.

Background

What is, actually, DrawingBrush? This is a deep copy of existing controls in a page, used to paint different areas. So, in order to build a custom DrawingBrush in Silverlight, we need to first learn how to create a deep clone of Sivlerlight objects.

Deep cloning objects in Silverlight

Basically, in order to clone WPF objects, we should use the XamlReader/XamlWriter. The problem is, the XamlWriter is a protected class in Silverlight, and thus we cannot use this approach. So, what do we do? The answer is to use Reflection to deep clone objects.

First, we should create an additional instance of the target class:

public static T Clone<T>(this T source)  where T : DependencyObject      
{       
    Type t = source.GetType();
    T no = (T)Activator.CreateInstance(t);

Then, travel recursively through all the DependencyPropertys and DependencyObjects and create a shallow copy of them:

Type wt = t;
while (wt.BaseType != typeof(DependencyObject))
{       
    FieldInfo[] fi = wt.GetFields(BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Public);
    for (int i = 0; i < fi.Length; i++)       
    {       
        {       
            DependencyProperty dp = fi[i].GetValue(source) as DependencyProperty;

When we have all the DependencyPropertys and their values, we can set them within the new instance of the object:

if (dp != null && fi[i].Name != "NameProperty")      
{       
    DependencyObject obj = source.GetValue(dp) as DependencyObject;
    if (obj != null)       
    {       
        object o = obj.Clone();
        no.SetValue(dp, o);
    }
    else
    {

There are some read-only DependencyPropertys. We have no information about them when using Reflection, thus the only way to avoid setting their values is by using hard-coded expressions:

{       
    if(fi[i].Name != "CountProperty" &&
        fi[i].Name != "GeometryTransformProperty" &&
        fi[i].Name != "ActualWidthProperty" &&       
        fi[i].Name != "ActualHeightProperty" &&
        fi[i].Name != "MaxWidthProperty" &&
        fi[i].Name != "MaxHeightProperty" &&
        fi[i].Name != "StyleProperty")
    {
        no.SetValue(dp, source.GetValue(dp));
    }
}

We are done with DependencyPropertys and DependencyObjects, and our next step is to get the CLR properties.

PropertyInfo[] pis = t.GetProperties();      
for (int i = 0; i < pis.Length; i++)       
{ 
    if (pis[i].Name != "Name" &&
        pis[i].Name != "Parent" &&
        pis[i].CanRead && pis[i].CanWrite &&
        !pis[i].PropertyType.IsArray &&
        !pis[i].PropertyType.IsSubclassOf(typeof(DependencyObject)) &&
        pis[i].GetIndexParameters().Length == 0 &&
        pis[i].GetValue(source, null) != null &&
        pis[i].GetValue(source,null) == (object)default(int) &&
        pis[i].GetValue(source, null) == (object)default(double) &&
        pis[i].GetValue(source, null) == (object)default(float)
        )
          pis[i].SetValue(no, pis[i].GetValue(source, null), null);

This works fine for regular properties, but what about arrays? There are methods to set the array values.

else if (pis[i].PropertyType.GetInterface("IList", true) != null)
{       
    int cnt = (int)pis[i].PropertyType.InvokeMember("get_Count",
               BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, pis[i].GetValue(source, null), null); 
    for (int c = 0; c < cnt; c++)
    {       
        object val = pis[i].PropertyType.InvokeMember("get_Item",
                     BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, pis[i].GetValue(source, null), 
                     new object[] { c }); 
        object nVal = val;      
        DependencyObject v = val as DependencyObject;       
        if(v != null)       
            nVal = v.Clone();
        pis[i].PropertyType.InvokeMember("Add", 
               BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, 
               pis[i].GetValue(no, null), new object[] { nVal }); 
    }       
}

By now, we are done with cloning; our next step is to use the cloned objects to create a DrawingBrush.

Using cloned objects to implement a DrawingBrush

All we have to do is add new objects to the visual and logical trees of our application. In order to do this, we'll create a new object, named DrawingBrush, with some properties: Pattern, Tile (inherited from TileBrush), and a Panel that will hold our cloned objects. I'm using a WrapPanel (that is also missing in Silverlight) in order to hold the new objects and tile them across the brush. You can get the source code and a description of how to implement it, from my blog.

void SetPatternImpl(double width, double height)
{       
    Pattern = new WrapPanel();
    Pattern.Width = width;
    Pattern.Height = height;
    Pattern.HorizontalAlignment = HorizontalAlignment.Stretch;
    Pattern.VerticalAlignment = VerticalAlignment.Stretch;
    double xObj = (1 / this.Viewport.Width);
    double yObj = (1 / this.Viewport.Height);
    for (int i = 0; i < Math.Ceiling(xObj*yObj); i++)
    {       
        Shape ns = this.Drawing.Clone();
        ns.Stretch = this.TileMode == TileMode.None?Stretch.None:Stretch.Fill;
        ns.Width = Pattern.Width / xObj;
        ns.Height = Pattern.Height / yObj;
        ScaleTransform st = new ScaleTransform();
        st.ScaleX = this.TileMode == TileMode.FlipX | 
                    this.TileMode == TileMode.FlipXY ? -1 : 1;
        st.ScaleY = this.TileMode == TileMode.FlipY | 
                    this.TileMode == TileMode.FlipXY ? -1 : 1;
        ns.RenderTransform = st;       
        Pattern.Children.Add(ns);       
    }
}

We are done; the only thing we have to do now is to use it within our XAML code. I tried to keep the syntax as simple as possible.

<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Width="300" Height="300">      
    <Grid.Background>       
        <l:DrawingBrush Viewport="0,0,0.25,0.25" TileMode="Tile">
            <l:DrawingBrush.Drawing>
                <Path Stroke="Black" Fill="Red" StrokeThickness="3">
                    <Path.Data>
                        <GeometryGroup>
                            <EllipseGeometry RadiusX="20" RadiusY="45" Center="50,50" />
                            <EllipseGeometry RadiusX="45" RadiusY="20" Center="50,50" />
                        </GeometryGroup>
                    </Path.Data>
                </Path>
            </l:DrawingBrush.Drawing>
        </l:DrawingBrush>
    </Grid.Background>
    <Canvas Width="150" Height="150" x:Name="canvas">
        <Canvas.Background>
            <l:DrawingBrush Viewport="0,0,0.1,0.1" TileMode="FlipX">
                <l:DrawingBrush.Drawing>
                    <Polygon Fill="Blue" Points="0,0 1,1 1,0 0,1"/>
                </l:DrawingBrush.Drawing>
            </l:DrawingBrush>
        </Canvas.Background>
        <TextBox Foreground="Yellow" Background="#AA000000" 
                 Text="Hello, World!" Height="30"/>
    </Canvas>
</Grid>

Points of Interest

There are some limitations for this implementation of the DrawingBrush:

It works with Panels only
It does not layout (thus you cannot use it with a StackPanel, for example)
You should name the hosting control (I explained why)
For drawings inside the DrawingBrush, you can use only Shape derived classes (e.g., Line, Polygon, Ellipse, Path, etc.)

For more information and a detailed description of this control, visit my blog. Also, you are more than welcome to enhance this control and contribute it in order to provide quality solutions for other developers' needs.

DrawingBrush for Silverlight 2.0