Server-side Styles

DotVVM supports Server-side styles which enable changing the style or attributes of specified controls across the whole application.

To use them you can register a Style in the StyleRepository which is a property of DotvvmConfiguration. You have to specify the type of the control which has to derive from DotvvmBindableObject or use a parameter with tag name of HTML element:

// Modify all controls derived from ButtonBase
config.Styles.Register<ButtonBase>();

// Modify all HTML elements with tag name input
config.Styles.Register("input");

If you register the style by specifying the tag name DotVVM controls will not be modified

It is also possible to set a condition under which the styles will be applied. To do that use Register(Func<StyleMatchContext, bool>). If this function returns true the styles are going to be applied, otherwise nothing happens.

// This will hide every control derived from ButtonBase that does not have the Click property
config.Styles.Register<ButtonBase>(b => !b.HasProperty(ButtonBase.ClickProperty), allowDerived: true)
  .SetAttribute("style", "display:none;", StyleOverrideOptions.Overwrite);

The styles are applied during the compilation of a view. The StyleMatchContext has methods for checking data contexts, ancestors and other properties of the object. You can even check whether the view the object is included in is in a specific directory:

config.Styles.Register<GridView>(c => c.HasAncestor<Repeater>() &&
    c.HasDataContext<AccountInfo>() && c.HasViewInDirectory("~/Views/Logs/"))
  .SetDotvvmProperty(GridView.VisibleProperty, StyleOverrideOptions.Ignore);

The Register method returns an instance of StyleBuilder that lets you modify the control. You can set default values of attributes and properties or override them completely. These method calls can also be chained.

// This will change the class on all buttons that do not have any
config.Styles.Register<Button>()
  .SetAttribute("class", "single-class");

//this will overwrite class of all textboxes
config.Styles.Register<TextBox>()
  .SetAttribute("class", "overwritten", StyleOverrideOptions.Overwrite);

//this will append class of all literals
config.Styles.Register<Literal>()
  .SetAttribute("class", "appended", StyleOverrideOptions.Append);

//this will overwrite the text of all buttons
config.Styles.Register<Button>()
  .SetDotvvmProperty(Button.TextProperty, "Button");

SetAttribute has the default value of StyleOverrideOptions Ignore while SetDotvvmProperty has Overwrite. Option Append is allowed only for attributes which supports multiple values, such as class, style.