Supporting Other Controls

Some controls may benefit from the tilt effect, yet may not necessarily derive from ButtonBase or ListBoxItem. To enable TiltEffect on an alternative UIElement type, such as on context menu items, add the element Type to the TitleEffect’s list of supported types via the TiltEffect.TiltableItems collection.

The following excerpt demonstrates how to add tilt effect support for the Toolkit’s context menu MenuItem class:

Click here to view code image

public partial class App : Application
{

    public App()
    {
        /* Content omitted for clarity. */

        TiltEffect.TiltableItems.Add(typeof(MenuItem));
    }
//...
}

To enable the tilt effect on MenuItem elements, you must explicitly set the IsTiltEnabled attached property to true, as demonstrated in the following excerpt:

Click here to view code image

<Border Padding="10" BorderThickness="2" BorderBrush="White">
    <TextBlock Text="tilt effect applied to context menu" />
    <toolkit:ContextMenuService.ContextMenu>
        <toolkit:ContextMenu >
            <toolkit:MenuItem Header="item 1"
                toolkit:TiltEffect.IsTiltEnabled="true" />
            <toolkit:MenuItem Header="item 2"
                toolkit:TiltEffect.IsTiltEnabled="true" />
        </toolkit:ContextMenu>
    </toolkit:ContextMenuService.ContextMenu>
</Border>

Applying the tilt effect to a context menu item causes it to be indented slightly (see Figure 9.22).

FIGURE 9.22 TiltEffect applied to a MenuItem.

Applied judiciously, TiltEffect can subtly enhance your UI, increasing its perceived responsiveness and making it stand out from the crowd.