WPF window shadow effect

Victor picture Victor · Nov 13, 2012 · Viewed 43.8k times · Source

I am new to WPF technology. I have the following window declaration in WPF:

<Window x:Class="CustomWindows.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        Title="MainWindow" Height="480" Width="640" ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Disabled" WindowStyle="None" AllowsTransparency="True">
    <Window.Effect>
        <DropShadowEffect BlurRadius="15" Direction="-90" RenderingBias="Quality" ShadowDepth="2"/>
    </Window.Effect>
    <Grid>

    </Grid>
</Window>

But when I run it, the shadow does not appear. What can I do, or where is the misstake?

Answer

Federico Berasategui picture Federico Berasategui · Nov 13, 2012

DropShadowEffect cannot be applied to a Window. Instead, if you want to override the default window appearance, you have to apply the effect to some other element contained in the window:

<Window x:Class="WpfApplication2.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="525" WindowStyle="None" AllowsTransparency="True" Background="Transparent">
    <Grid Margin="20" Background="Red">
        <Grid.Effect>
            <DropShadowEffect BlurRadius="15" Direction="-90" RenderingBias="Quality" ShadowDepth="2"/>
        </Grid.Effect>
        ...

    </Grid>
</Window>