How to: Implement an Adorner

This example shows a minimal adorner implementation.

Notes for Implementers

It is important to note that adorners do not include any inherent rendering behavior; ensuring that an adorner renders is the responsibility of the adorner implementer. A common way of implementing rendering behavior is to override the OnRenderSizeChanged method and use one or more DrawingContext objects to render the adorner's visuals as needed (as shown in this example).

Example

A custom adorner is created by implementing a class that inherits from the abstract Adorner class. The example adorner simply adorns the corners of a UIElement with circles by overriding the OnRender method.

// Adorners must subclass the abstract base class Adorner.
public class SimpleCircleAdorner : Adorner
{
  // Be sure to call the base class constructor.
  public SimpleCircleAdorner(UIElement adornedElement)
    : base(adornedElement) 
  { 
  }

  // A common way to implement an adorner's rendering behavior is to override the OnRender
  // method, which is called by the layout system as part of a rendering pass.
  protected override void OnRender(DrawingContext drawingContext)
  {
    Rect adornedElementRect = new Rect(this.AdornedElement.DesiredSize);

    // Some arbitrary drawing implements.
    SolidColorBrush renderBrush = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Green);
    renderBrush.Opacity = 0.2;
    Pen renderPen = new Pen(new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Navy), 1.5);
    double renderRadius = 5.0;

    // Draw a circle at each corner.
    drawingContext.DrawEllipse(renderBrush, renderPen, adornedElementRect.TopLeft, renderRadius, renderRadius);
    drawingContext.DrawEllipse(renderBrush, renderPen, adornedElementRect.TopRight, renderRadius, renderRadius);
    drawingContext.DrawEllipse(renderBrush, renderPen, adornedElementRect.BottomLeft, renderRadius, renderRadius);
    drawingContext.DrawEllipse(renderBrush, renderPen, adornedElementRect.BottomRight, renderRadius, renderRadius);
  }
}

Public Class SimpleCircleAdorner
    Inherits Adorner
    Sub New(ByVal adornedElement As UIElement)
        MyBase.New(adornedElement)
    End Sub

    Protected Overrides Sub OnRender(ByVal drawingContext As System.Windows.Media.DrawingContext)
        MyBase.OnRender(drawingContext)
        Dim adornedElementRect As New Rect(AdornedElement.DesiredSize)
        Dim renderBrush As New SolidColorBrush(Colors.Green)
        renderBrush.Opacity = 0.2
        Dim renderPen As New Pen(New SolidColorBrush(Colors.Navy), 1.5)
        Dim renderRadius As Double
        renderRadius = 5.0

        'Draw a circle at each corner.
        drawingContext.DrawEllipse(renderBrush, renderPen, adornedElementRect.TopLeft, renderRadius, renderRadius)
        drawingContext.DrawEllipse(renderBrush, renderPen, adornedElementRect.TopRight, renderRadius, renderRadius)
        drawingContext.DrawEllipse(renderBrush, renderPen, adornedElementRect.BottomLeft, renderRadius, renderRadius)
        drawingContext.DrawEllipse(renderBrush, renderPen, adornedElementRect.BottomRight, renderRadius, renderRadius)
    End Sub
End Class

See Also

Concepts

Adorners Overview

Other Resources

SimpleCircleAdorner Sample
Add and Add Adorners Sample
ResizingAdorner Sample