How to easily allow users to update Styles used be elements in XAML (UWP)

Question

This is for a Windows 10 UWP. I need to allow users to update values on Styles that are associated with elements used throughout the application (i.e allow users to change t

Answer 1

Unfortunately this kind of user-defined styling is not easily available in UWP. You can however implement a kind of styling solution using data binding.

First step is to create a class like CustomUISettings which implements INotifyPropertyChanged and has properties like HeaderFontSize, etc.

Now on app start create an instance of this class and add it as app resource:

Application.Current.Resources["CustomUISettings"] = new CustomUISettings();

Now you can bind to the properties in this class anywhere in your code:

<TextBox FontSize="{Binding HeaderFontSize, Source={StaticResource CustomUISettings}}" />

You must use the classic {Binding} markup extension, because {x:Bind} does not support Source setting.

To modify the UI settings you can just retrieve the instance anywhere and set the properties as you see fit:

var customUISettings = (CustomUISettings)Application.Current.Resources["CustomUISettings"];
customUISettings.HeaderFontSize = 50;

You must make sure that all properties in CustomUISettings class fire the PropertyChanged event. You can see how to implement INotifyPropertyChanged interface for example here.