XamlCSS

Style Xaml-applications with CSS - get it for WPF, Xamarin.Forms or UWP and start right here!

Why XamlCSS For XAML?

Concise

Styling with (s)css gives a more concise declaration of your styles. XamlCSS even supports a subset of SCSS features like selector nesting, css-variables and mixins. This enables you to make your declarations even more concise.

Freely Combine Styles

Other than vanilla Xaml-styles, css allows you to freely combine styles - no BasedOn restriction. Even better, this is done for you behind the curtains!
And if you really want to combine styles yourself use @extend.

Semantic Meaning

Semantic meaning can be conveyed, i.e. is your ui-element important, a warning, a header or a sub-header? This is achieved by using css-classes.

Based On View-Hierarchy

Css takes into account where inside your view-hierarchy your element gets added. No need to manually assigning a style.
It also detects that an element was added or removed.
In combination with semantic selectors you can style a button differently just because it is in a warning dialog. And if you want to create a dark, a light and a custom theme, just switch the css-class-name on your root view-element and all elements update themselves automatically.

Support For Xaml-Features

You can use markup-extensions and triggers in your (s)css.

In css you cannot declare an instance of an object as you can do in xaml. A Storyboard for example must be declared as usual in a ResourceDictionary but then can be referenced in css with a markup-extension.

Designer Support

XamlCSS builds on top of the native Xaml-Style implementations, so it works with the WPF and UWP designer. For Xamarin.Forms there is LiveXAML.

Supported platforms

• XamarinForms
  NuGet: XamlCSS.XamarinForms
• WPF
  NuGet: XamlCSS.WPF
• Universal Windows Platform
  NuGet: XamlCSS.UWP

Supported Features

• CSS selectors
• Remove and reapply styles
• Detect new elements and apply matching styles
• Support Binding * (except vanilla UWP)
• Support StaticResource *
• Support DynamicResource * (except vanilla UWP)
• Set simple values like Foreground, FontSize, FontStyle,... by CSS
• Triggers
• Multiple StyleSheets
• Nested selectors (like Sass)
• Css-variables
• Import of other css-files
• Mixins

Not (yet) supported

• Visual State Manager

For more information look at the provided test-apps in the solution to see how to initialize and use XamlCSS.

*) Breaking change in binding syntax in 2.0.0: instead of {Binding value} you now write #Binding value or "{Binding value}"