Advanced Theming

The information here applies to version 2.6.0 and later.

Setting the initial theme

The first step is to set the inital 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 extenions (BundledTheme or CustomColorTheme). These return a new ResourceDictionary instance with all of the brushes setup for you.
2. Create a new ITheme 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;
...
PrimaryColor primary = PrimaryColor.DeepPurple;
Color primaryColor = SwatchHelper.Lookup[(MaterialDesignColor)PrimaryColor];

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

IBaseTheme baseTheme = Theme.Light;
//If you want a dark theme you can use IBaseTheme baseTheme = Theme.Dark;

ITheme theme = Theme.Create(baseTheme, primaryColor, secondaryColor);

If you want you can use any arbitrary colors.

using MaterialDesignThemes.Wpf;
using System.Windows.Media;
...
Color primaryColor = Colors.Purple;
Color secondaryColor = Colors.Lime;

IBaseTheme baseTheme = Theme.Light;
//If you want a dark theme you can use IBaseTheme baseTheme = Theme.Dark;

ITheme theme = Theme.Create(baseTheme, primaryColor, secondaryColor);

Changing the theme

Prior to version 2.6.0 the PaletteHelper class provided methods for modifying the theme. These methods are now obsolete in favor of the new GetTheme and SetTheme methods on PaletteHelper. To change the theme simply get the existing ITheme, modify this theme object, and then simply set it with PaletteHelper.SetTheme. Similar to this:

using MaterialDesignColors;
using MaterialDesignThemes.Wpf;
...
//Retrieve the app's existing theme
ITheme theme = PaletteHelper.GetTheme();

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