Is there any way to use StaticResource in a WPF control library and be able to view at design-time?

Question

I have a WPF Control Library that is being added to a windows forms application. We want to allow the controls to be localizable, however I am not sure how to FULLY accomplish t

Answer 1

I've run into this problem once, and I resolved it by dropping the whole "Resources are objects indexed by key in canonical dictionaries" thing.

I mean, the simple fact of defining a resource in one project and referencing it in another by it's "key" should give goosebumps to any sane person. I wanted strong references.

My solution to this problem was to create a custom tool that converts my resource xaml files to static classes with a property for each resource:

So MyResources.xaml:

Becomes MyResources.xaml.cs

public static class MyResources {

  static MyResources() {
    // load the xaml file and assign values to static properties
  }

  public static SolidColorBrush LightBrush { get; set; }
  public static SolidColorBrush DarkBrush { get; set; }

}

For referencing a resource, you can use the x:Static instead of StaticResource:

Now you got strong references, autocompletion and compile time check of resources.