Advanced Theming

The information here applies to version 5.0.0 and later.

Setting the initial theme

The first step is to set the initial theme. There are two recommended ways to accomplish this:

1. Use one of the built in Markup Extensions that generates a theme resource dictionary. Use one of the built-in markup extensions (BundledTheme or CustomColorTheme). These return a new ResourceDictionary instance with all of the brushes setup for you.
2. Create a new Theme object and use ResourceDictionaryExtensions.SetTheme(Application.Current.Resources). You can create a new Theme object using:

using MaterialDesignColors;
using MaterialDesignThemes.Wpf;
using System.Windows.Media;
...
Theme theme = new();
PrimaryColor primary = PrimaryColor.DeepPurple;
Color primaryColor = SwatchHelper.Lookup[(MaterialDesignColor)primary];
theme.SetPrimaryColor(primaryColor);

SecondaryColor secondary = SecondaryColor.Teal;
Color secondaryColor = SwatchHelper.Lookup[(MaterialDesignColor)secondary];
theme.SetSecondaryColor(secondaryColor);

theme.SetLightTheme();
//If you want a dark theme you can use theme.SetDarkTheme(); or theme.SetBaseTheme()

If you want you can use any arbitrary colors.

Theme theme = new();
Color primaryColor = Colors.Purple;
theme.SetPrimaryColor(primaryColor);

Color secondaryColor = Colors.Lime;
theme.SetSecondaryColor(secondaryColor);

theme.SetLightTheme();
//If you want a dark theme you can use theme.SetDarkTheme(); or theme.SetBaseTheme()

Changing the theme

To change the theme simply get or create a Theme instance, modify this theme instance, and then apply it with PaletteHelper.SetTheme. Similar to this:

using MaterialDesignColors;
using MaterialDesignThemes.Wpf;
...
var paletteHelper = new PaletteHelper();
//Retrieve the app's existing theme
Theme theme = paletteHelper.GetTheme();

//Change the base theme to Dark
theme.SetBaseTheme(BaseTheme.Dark);
//or theme.SetBaseTheme(Theme.Light);

//Change all of the primary colors to Red
theme.SetPrimaryColor(Colors.Red);

//Change all of the secondary colors to Blue
theme.SetSecondaryColor(Colors.Blue);

//You can also change a single color on the theme, and optionally set the corresponding foreground color
theme.PrimaryMid = new ColorPair(Colors.Brown, Colors.White);

//Change the app's current theme
paletteHelper.SetTheme(theme);