How to: Paint an Area with a System Brush
The SystemColors class provides access to system brushes and colors, such as ControlBrush, ControlBrushKey, and DesktopBrush. A system brush is a SolidColorBrush object that paints an area with the specified system color. A system brush always produces a solid fill; it can't be used to create a gradient.
You can use system brushes as either a static or a dynamic resource. Use a dynamic resource if you want the brush to update automatically if the user changes the system brush as the application is running; otherwise, use a static resource. The SystemColors class contains a variety of static properties that follow a strict naming convention:
<SystemColor> Brush
Gets a static reference to a SolidColorBrush of the specified system color.
<SystemColor> BrushKey
Gets a dynamic reference to a SolidColorBrush of the specified system color.
<SystemColor> Color
Gets a static reference to a Color structure of the specified system color.
<SystemColor> ColorKey
Gets a dynamic reference to the Color structure of the specified system color.
A system color is a Color structure that can be used to configure a brush. For example, you can create a gradient using system colors by setting the Color properties of a LinearGradientBrush object's gradient stops with system colors. For an example, see How to: Use System Colors in a Gradient.
Example
The following example uses a dynamic system brush reference to set the Background of a button.
<Page xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
WindowTitle="SystemColors Example" Background="White">
<StackPanel Margin="20">
<!-- Uses a dynamic resource to set the
background of a button.
If the desktop brush changes while this application
is running, this button will be updated. -->
<Button
Background="{DynamicResource {x:Static SystemColors.DesktopBrushKey}}"
Content="Hello, World!" />
</StackPanel>
</Page>
The next example uses a static system brush reference to set the Background of a button.
<Page xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
WindowTitle="SystemColors Example" Background="White">
<StackPanel Margin="20">
<!-- Uses a static brush to set the
background of a button.
If the desktop brush changes while this application
is running, this button will not be updated until
the page is loaded again. -->
<Button
Background="{x:Static SystemColors.DesktopBrush}"
Content="Hello, World!" />
</StackPanel>
</Page>
For an example showing how to use a system color in a gradient, see How to: Use System Colors in a Gradient.
See Also
Tasks
How to: Use System Colors in a Gradient