Microsoft Surface – Customizing the look and feel of the ScatterViewItem (and other controls)

The ScatterViewItem is a very useful way to get the “surface feel” into your apps very quickly. However it is likely you will want to customize how your ScatterViewItem looks and reacts to user input. The following steps will help you customize it to your hearts content. This procedure could be applied generally to any other control as well.

1. Create a WPF application in Visual Studio, add a ScatterView and ScatterViewItem. Save the project.
2. Open project in Expression Blend.
3. Under Objects and Timeline, right click on the ScatterViewItem control, select Edit Control Parts (Template) -> Edit a Copy…
4. Give it a new name like ‘ScatterViewItem_Customized’ and click OK.
5. Save the project and return to VS. VS will prompt you to reload changed files.
6. Now you will have the entire default control template to modify to your hearts content.

Posted on Sunday, May 10, 2009 1:32 PM Microsoft Surface , WPF | Back to top

Comments on this post: Microsoft Surface – Customizing the look and feel of the ScatterViewItem (and other controls)

# re: Microsoft Surface – Customizing the look and feel of the ScatterViewItem (and other controls)

Interesting article! Sharp and neat.

Can you recommenced some books presenting programming on the Surface in particular?

Left by Radu Poenaru on Nov 03, 2009 7:26 AM

Thanks for reading! Actually, I am unaware of any books for Microsoft Surface. It is quite possible that WPF 4 will overtake it (IMHO). If you are interested in learning how to do surface like stuff on a regular touch screen monitor I would recommend downloading the VS 2010 beta 2 with has several samples in this area.

Left by Bob on Nov 03, 2009 9:32 AM