Recently, a reader asked how they should go about setting the Typography properties from code-behind.

The original question was about Silverlight, but the approach works in WPF, Windows 8 and more.

Given the following markup:

<StackPanel>

    <TextBlock x:Name="OriginalText"

               FontSize="72"

               FontFamily="Gabriola"

               Text="Hello World!" />



    <TextBlock x:Name="ExampleText"

               FontSize="72"

               FontFamily="Gabriola"

               Text="Hello World!" />

</StackPanel>

You can set an attached property such as Typography.StylisticSet5 by using the SetValue method like this:

private void SetTextOptions()

{

    ExampleText.SetValue(Typography.StylisticSet5Property, true);

}

The SetValue method comes from the DependencyObject base class. Typography.StylisticSet5Property is the name of a dependency property - an attached property in this case. This could easily have been the Canvas.Left property, the Grid.Row property or any number of other attached properties. The resulting display looks like this:

Note how the second TextBlock has had the stylistic set applied to it.

This approach used the SetValue method of the dependency object. There's also another way:

private void SetTextOptions()

{

    Typography.SetStylisticSet5(ExampleText, true);

}

This version uses the Set[dpname] method of the class which owns the property. Use the most convenient method. Both are equivalent.

I also cover dependency properties and attached properties in both of my Silverlight books, as well as in my upcoming Windows 8 XAML book.