WPF localizabled color picker combobox

Question

i want to localize the colors of a combobox colorpicker.

I know, that i had to translate the color names manually.

Think you need to know, how i fill my combobox and display the data.

here is my xaml for the combobox together with the itemtemplate:

<ComboBox x:Name="cmbxFarbeKategorie" Margin="5,0,0,0" Height="40" FontSize="18"
     SelectionChanged="cmbxFarbeKategorie_SelectionChanged">
<ComboBox.ItemTemplate>
      <DataTemplate>
           <DockPanel LastChildFill="False" Margin="0,0,10,0">
               <Rectangle VerticalAlignment="Center" Fill="{Binding Name}" Width="16" Height="16" Margin="0,2,5,2" />
               <TextBlock x:Name="tbDataTempcmbx"  VerticalAlignment="Center" Tag="{Binding Name}" Text="{Binding Name}" />
           </DockPanel>
      </DataTemplate>
</ComboBox.ItemTemplate>

and at runtime i fill it once with the default definded color names from .net:

foreach (var col in typeof(Colors).GetProperties())
{
      cmbxFarbeKategorie.Items.Add(col);
}

Now i need a way to access to the VisualTree of each item and replace the Binding of the text with the translated color.

Translation method (used this one) gives back a string.

I don't want to rename the color, i only want to replace the displayed text.

My problem is, that i know how to access to the TextBlock at the ItemTemplate, but after trying this, i found out, that this is not the right way.

I think, i had to access for each item at my combobox to the visual childs and change there the text of the textblock to the translated version.

But don't found out how - or is there maybe a easier way?

Answer 1

After trying a lot of things i found a solution yesterday morning.
It would be better not to store only the color.

The default color doesn't includes other thinks than a name and a value.
Therefore i wrote a own class for adding these colors to the combobox. Ended in creating a string for Tag, one for Name and a Color.

Name and Color aren't updated if i want to localize the names.
The Tag-Property is only used to store the localized names somewhere and can bind my Text-Property to another value than the english default name (which is stored at the Name-Property).

I want not to update the name property because this would be ending at converting many times at both directions and this is not a good way.

Step 1 - Create a own Class to store the color:

 public class ColorItem
{
    public string Tag
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    public string Name
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    public Color Color
    {
        get;
        set;
    }
}

Second step was to update my foreach-loop:

if the system language is not english (i check this once at the start of the application and store it), than i update the Tag-Property of the item with the translated name.

foreach (var col in typeof(Colors).GetProperties())
{
     string strColor = col.ToString().Replace("System.Windows.Media.Color ", "");
         string strTag = "";
         switch (iSystemLanguage)
         {
         case 0:
             strTag = strColor;
             break;
        case 1:
             drawg.Color drawingcolor = drawg.Color.FromName(strColor);
             strTag = GetGerManColorNames.GetGermanName(drawingcolor);
             break;
        default:
             strTag = strColor;
             break;
       }
       cmbxFarbeKategorie.Items.Add(new ColorItem() { Name = strColor, Tag = 
                strTag, Color = (Color)ColorConverter.ConvertFromString(strColor) });
    }

At last step i had to update my bindings at my ComboBox:

<ComboBox x:Name="cmbxFarbeKategorie" Margin="5,0,0,0" Height="40" FontSize="18"
 SelectionChanged="cmbxFarbeKategorie_SelectionChanged">
<ComboBox.ItemTemplate>
      <DataTemplate>
           <DockPanel LastChildFill="False" Margin="0,0,10,0">
               <Rectangle VerticalAlignment="Center" Fill="{Binding Name}" 
                               Width="16" Height="16" Margin="0,2,5,2" />
               <TextBlock x:Name="tbDataTempcmbx"  VerticalAlignment="Center" 
                                 Tag="{Binding Name}" Text="{Binding Tag}" />
           </DockPanel>
    </DataTemplate>
</ComboBox.ItemTemplate>
 </ComboBox>

It's a little bit more work to get the SelectedItem (for example:at SelectionChanged), but i think it's a good way to localize the color and store the right english name for using at the application.