Accessing a Control Instance

There are a number of times when you may find yourself wanting to access the instance of a control that you initialized. This could be useful for bindings or even to later configure Event Handlers on the control. You can most easily do this with the Name method as follows:

this.Content(
    new StackPanel()
        .Children(
            new Button()
                .Name(out var button)
                .Content("Press Me")
        )
);

int i = 1;
button.Click += delegate {
    button.Content = $"Clicked {i++} times";
}

You can also define a delegate using the Name method:

int i = 1;

this.Content(
    new StackPanel()
        .Children(
            new Button()
                .Name(button => 
                {
                    button.Click += (s, e) =>
                    {
                        button.Content = $"Clicked {i++} times";
                    };
                })
                .Content("Press Me")
        )
);

Or if you want to expose a variable and also define a delegate:

int i = 1;

this.Content(
    new StackPanel()
        .Children(
            new Button()
                .Name(out var button, (b) => 
                {
                    b.Click += (s, e) =>
                    {
                        b.Content = $"Clicked {i++} times";
                    };
                })
                .Content("Press Me")
        )
);

var buttonContent = button.Content;

Note

Using the .Name(out var button) or .Name(button => { ... }) syntax not only gives you a variable representing your FrameworkElement control but also sets the control's Name property to match the variable name. For example, in the scenario mentioned earlier, the Button would have its Name property set to "button" because the variable name used is button.