Is there a way to use data-template inheritance in WPF?

Question

Is it possible to have DataTemplate composition or inheritance (similar to "BasedOn" in Styles)? There are 2 instances where I need that.

1. For inherited classes: I have a base class with several inherited classes. I don't want to duplicate the base class template in each of the derived class's DataTemplate.

2. Different Views: for the same class I want to define a datatemplate, and then add to that template as appropriate. Ex. the base template will display the data in the object and then i want different templates that can perform different actions on the object, while displaying the data (inheriting the base template).

Answer 1

The only thing that I have found do to for this kind of thing is this:

<DataTemplate x:Key="BaseClass">
  <!-- base class template here -->
</DataTemplate>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type app:BaseClass}">
  <ContentPresenter Content="{Binding}" 
                    ContentTemplate="{StaticResource BaseClass}"/>
</DataTemplate>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type app:DerivedClass}">
  <StackPanel>
    <ContentPresenter Content="{Binding}" 
                      ContentTemplate="{StaticResource BaseClass}"/>
    <!-- derived class extra template here -->
  </StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>

Basically this creates a "common" template that can be referenced using a key (BaseClass in this case). Then we define the real DataTemplate for the base class, and any derived classes. The derived class template would then add it's own "stuff".

There was some discussion about this on msdn a while back, but no one came up with a better solution that I saw.