RectangleGeometry with relative dimensions... how?

Padu Merloti picture Padu Merloti · Mar 24, 2010 · Viewed 8.6k times · Source

I'm trying to replicate the nowadays so fashionable "reflex" effect on a controltemplate for buttons I'm creating.

The basic idea is to create a rectangle with a gradient fill from white to transparent and then clip some of that semi-transparent rectangle with a rectanglegeometry.

The problem is that I don't know how to define a relative rectangle geometry. I kind of worked around width by defining a large value (1000), but height is a problem. For example, it works good for buttons that have a 200 height, but doesn't do anything for smaller buttons.

Any ideas?

            <Rectangle RadiusX="5" RadiusY="5" StrokeThickness="1" Stroke="Transparent">
                <Rectangle.Fill>
                    <LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="0,0.55">
                        <GradientStop Color="#66ffffff" Offset="0.0"  />
                        <GradientStop Color="Transparent" Offset="1.0" />
                    </LinearGradientBrush>
                </Rectangle.Fill>
                <Rectangle.Clip>
                    <RectangleGeometry Rect="0,0,1000,60" />
                </Rectangle.Clip>
            </Rectangle>

Answer

Abe Heidebrecht picture Abe Heidebrecht · Mar 24, 2010

You could do this with a MultiBinding and a new IMultiValueConverter:

public class RectangleConverter : IMultiValueConverter
{
    public object Convert(object[] values, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
{
        // you can pass in the value to divide by if you want
        return new Rect(0, 0, (double)values[0], (double)values[1] / 3.33);
    }

    public object[] ConvertBack(object value, Type[] targetTypes, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
    {
        throw new NotSupportedException();
    }
}

And used like so in your XAML:

<lcl:RectangleConverter x:Key="rectConverter" />

...

<RectangleGeometry>
    <RectangleGeometry.Rect>
        <MultiBinding Converter="{StaticResource rectConverter}">
            <Binding Path="ActualWidth" RelativeSource="{RelativeSource AncestorType={x:Type Button}}" />
            <Binding Path="ActualHeight" RelativeSource="{RelativeSource AncestorType={x:Type Button}}" />
        </MultiBinding>
    </RectangleGeometry.Rect>
</RectangleGeometry>