C# - Enum Color Converter with IValueConverter

With WPF, it’s pretty easy to create a converter to display the color of a text depending on an Enum value. Here is a simple example with IValueConverter.

Let’s start with the View:

<Window x:Class="TextBlockConverter.Views.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:prism="http://prismlibrary.com/"
        xmlns:converters="clr-namespace:TextBlockConverter.Converters"
        prism:ViewModelLocator.AutoWireViewModel="True"
        Title="{Binding Title}" Height="200" Width="200">

    <Window.Resources>
        <converters:StatusToColorConverter x:Key="StatusToColorConverter"/>
    </Window.Resources>

    <Grid>
        <StackPanel Margin="65">
            <TextBlock
                   Text="{Binding StatusOk}"
                   Foreground="{Binding StatusOk, Converter={StaticResource StatusToColorConverter}}"/>

            <TextBlock
                   Text="{Binding StatusNOk}"
                   Foreground="{Binding StatusNOk, Converter={StaticResource StatusToColorConverter}}"/>
        </StackPanel>

    </Grid>
</Window>
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

As you can see, we use a converter to select the correct color. Here is the code for this converter:

using System;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Windows.Data;
using System.Windows.Media;
using TextBlockConverter.Models;

namespace TextBlockConverter.Converters
{
    public class StatusToColorConverter : IValueConverter
    {
        public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
        {
            if (value is StatusEnum && value != null)
            {
                StatusEnum status = (StatusEnum)value;
                var color = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.White);

                switch (status)
                {
                    case StatusEnum.Ok:
                        color = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Green);
                        break;
                    case StatusEnum.NOk:
                        color = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Red);
                        break;
                    default:
                        color = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.White);
                        break;
                }

                return color;
            }

            return Binding.DoNothing;
        }

        public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
        {
            throw new NotSupportedException();
        }
    }
}
Code language: C# (cs)

The color will be based on the Status Enum:

namespace TextBlockConverter.Models
{
    public enum StatusEnum
    {
        Ok = 1,
        NOk = 2
    }
}
Code language: C# (cs)

And of course our simple ViewModel:

using Prism.Mvvm;
using TextBlockConverter.Models;

namespace TextBlockConverter.ViewModels
{
    public class MainWindowViewModel : BindableBase
    {
        private string _title = "TextBlock Enum Converter";
        public string Title
        {
            get { return _title; }
            set { SetProperty(ref _title, value); }
        }

        private StatusEnum _statusOk;
        public StatusEnum StatusOk
        {
            get { return _statusOk; }
            set { SetProperty(ref _statusOk, value); }
        }

        private StatusEnum _statusNOk;
        public StatusEnum StatusNOk
        {
            get { return _statusNOk; }
            set { SetProperty(ref _statusNOk, value); }
        }

        public MainWindowViewModel()
        {
            StatusOk = StatusEnum.Ok;
            StatusNOk = StatusEnum.NOk;
        }
    }
}
Code language: C# (cs)

Happy coding 🙂

C# – Enum Color Converter with IValueConverter

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