Deactivate FocusVisualStyle globally

Question

I want to globally deactivate the focus rectangles in my WPF application. For single controls that can be done via

<Style TargetType="Button">
    <Setter Property="FocusVisualStyle" Value="{x:Null}" />
</Style>

but how to apply it to all controls in my application. When applying to FrameworkElement nothing happens. What I need would be something like "apply to class x and all derived classes".

Thanks in advance,

Stefan

Answer 1

Looks like there's no magic bullet for this:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/wpf/thread/141c8bfa-f152-4f8a-aca0-3c3b5440d183

Answer 2

According to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb613567.aspx, you should be able to set global focus style like this:

<Style x:Key="{x:Static SystemParameters.FocusVisualStyleKey}">
  <Setter Property="Control.Template">
    <Setter.Value>
      <ControlTemplate>
        <Rectangle StrokeThickness="1"
          Stroke="Black"
          StrokeDashArray="1 2"
          SnapsToDevicePixels="true"/>
      </ControlTemplate>
    </Setter.Value>
  </Setter>
</Style> 

I haven't tested it, but I guess that when you empty the controltemplate, this would effectively disable the focus rectangle for the whole app (provided you include this style in app.xaml).

Answer 3

I stumbled upon this as well and came up with this (indeed not very nice but effective) solution:

public class FocusVisualStyleRemover
{
  static FocusVisualStyleRemover()
  {
    EventManager.RegisterClassHandler(typeof(FrameworkElement), FrameworkElement.GotFocusEvent, new RoutedEventHandler(RemoveFocusVisualStyle), true);
  }

  public static void Init()
  {
    // intentially empty
  }

  private static void RemoveFocusVisualStyle(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
  {
    (sender as FrameworkElement).FocusVisualStyle = null;
  }
}

In my MainWindow's constructor I then just call FocusVisualStyleRemover.Init();

Answer 4

I know it sounds tedious, but you'll probably have to do the same thing for all the other control types, individually. Making a list of them and doing a couple simple Find/Replace operations should get you what you need, though.