White frame around listbox Item selection on Windows8

Question

I am getting complaints from Windows8 users about a strange frame around the SelectedItem on ListBoxes

In Windows7 this issue does not exists and so far I have found no way to get rid of this white frame.

As far as I can tell Windows8 listboxes now use ControlBrushKey instead of HighlightBrushKey but setting that to Transparent has no affect.

I have no Windows8 development environment at the moment so all fixes I have tried are pure guess work.

ListBox Resources:

 <ListBox.Resources>
     <SolidColorBrush x:Key="{x:Static SystemColors.HighlightBrushKey}" Color="Transparent" />
     <SolidColorBrush x:Key="{x:Static SystemColors.ControlBrushKey}" Color="Transparent" />
     <SolidColorBrush x:Key="{x:Static SystemColors.InactiveSelectionHighlightBrushKey}" Color="Transparent" />

     <Style TargetType="ListBoxItem">
         <Setter Property="FocusVisualStyle" Value="{x:Null}" />
         <Setter Property="BorderBrush" Value="Transparent" />
     </Style>
 </ListBox.Resources>

The entire Xaml can be found here: https://github.com/saddam213/MPDisplay/blob/master/GUIFramework/GUI/Controls/GUIList.xaml

Image of the frame: (white box around selection)

If anyone has a clue how to get rid of this it would be great.

Answer 1

In a comment in your original post, you said:

I am not going to rebuild a control just because of a brush that needs to be overridden, I just will not support Windows8 if I need to override a entire ListBox template to remove a selection color, it will be simple once I install Win8 to find the brush using snoop

However, it is not painfully difficult to "rebuild" the ListBoxItem. It may, in fact, be simpler than forcing brushes, as you do not need to worry about overriding every UX change between Windows versions. One particular app I am building right now has the requirement that it run on every OS from XP to 8.1; I achieved a uniform look across all OSes by customizing everything down to the window borders.

Your best bet would be to style every aspect of the ListBoxItem by creating a template, something like the following:

<Style TargetType="ListBoxItem">
    <Setter Property="Background" Value="Transparent" />
    <Setter Property="Template">
        <Setter.Value>
            <ControlTemplate TargetType="ListBoxItem">
                <Border BorderThickness="{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}"
                    Background="{TemplateBinding Background}"
                    BorderBrush="{TemplateBinding BorderBrush}">
                    <ContentPresenter />
                </Border>
                <ControlTemplate.Triggers>
                    <Trigger Property="IsMouseOver" Value="True">
                        <Setter Property="Background" Value="Green" />
                    </Trigger>
                    <Trigger Property="IsSelected" Value="True">
                        <Setter Property="Background" Value="Blue" />
                    </Trigger>
                </ControlTemplate.Triggers>
            </ControlTemplate>
        </Setter.Value>
    </Setter>
</Style>

Obviously, you would need to modify the styles to get the exact behavior you want.