Getting Started with WPF Carousel

This tutorial will walk you through the creation of a simple application containing RadCarousel and will show you how to:

Assembly References

To use RadCarousel, add references to the following assemblies:

Telerik.Windows.Controls
Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation
Telerik.Windows.Data

You can find the required assemblies for each control from the suite in the Controls Dependencies help article.

Adding Telerik Assemblies Using NuGet

To use __RadCarousel__ when working with NuGet packages, install the Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation.for.Wpf.Xaml package. The package name may vary slightly based on the Telerik dlls set - Xaml or NoXaml

Read more about NuGet installation in the Installing UI for WPF from NuGet Package article.

Adding RadCarousel to the Project

Example 1: Adding RadGridView to application

<telerik:RadCarousel x:Name="MyCarousel" Background="Black" Height="400" />

Binding RadCarousel to a Collection of Custom Objects

For the purpose of this tutorial we will create a new Employee class with a couple of properties:

Example 2: The Employee class

public class Employee 
{ 
    public string FirstName 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
    public string LastName 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
    public int Age 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
    public string Position 
    { 
        get; 
        set; 
    } 
}

Public Class Employee 
    Public Property FirstName() As String 
        Get 
            Return m_FirstName 
        End Get 
        Set 
            m_FirstName = Value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
    Private m_FirstName As String 
    Public Property LastName() As String 
        Get 
            Return m_LastName 
        End Get 
        Set 
            m_LastName = Value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
    Private m_LastName As String 
    Public Property Age() As Integer 
        Get 
            Return m_Age 
        End Get 
        Set 
            m_Age = Value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
    Private m_Age As Integer 
    Public Property Position() As String 
        Get 
            Return m_Position 
        End Get 
        Set 
            m_Position = Value 
        End Set 
    End Property 
    Private m_Position As String 
End Class

Furthermore, as some data will be needed, we will create EmployeeService class that provides a static GetEmployees() method:

Example 3: The EmployeeService class

public class EmployeeService 
{ 
    public static ObservableCollection<Employee> GetEmployees() 
    { 
        ObservableCollection<Employee> employees = new ObservableCollection<Employee>(); 
        Employee employee = new Employee(); 
        employee.FirstName = "Margaret"; 
        employee.LastName = "Peacock"; 
        employee.Position = "Sales Representative"; 
        employee.Age = 24; 
        employees.Add(employee); 
        employee = new Employee(); 
        employee.FirstName = "Steven"; 
        employee.LastName = "Buchanan"; 
        employee.Position = "Sales Manager"; 
        employee.Age = 44; 
        employees.Add(employee); 
        employee = new Employee(); 
        employee.FirstName = "Michael"; 
        employee.LastName = "Suyama"; 
        employee.Position = "Sales Representative"; 
        employee.Age = 33; 
        employees.Add(employee); 
        employee = new Employee(); 
        employee.FirstName = "Robert"; 
        employee.LastName = "King"; 
        employee.Position = "Sales Representative"; 
        employee.Age = 28; 
        employees.Add(employee); 
        employee = new Employee(); 
        employee.FirstName = "Laura"; 
        employee.LastName = "Callahan"; 
        employee.Position = "Inside Sales Coordinator"; 
        employee.Age = 26; 
        employees.Add(employee); 
        employee = new Employee(); 
        employee.FirstName = "Anne"; 
        employee.LastName = "Dodsworth"; 
        employee.Position = "Sales Representative"; 
        employee.Age = 30; 
        employees.Add(employee); 
 
        return employees; 
    } 
}

Public Class EmployeeService 
    Public Shared Function GetEmployees() As ObservableCollection(Of Employee) 
        Dim employees As New ObservableCollection(Of Employee)() 
        Dim employee As New Employee() 
        employee.FirstName = "Margaret" 
        employee.LastName = "Peacock" 
        employee.Position = "Sales Representative" 
        employee.Age = 24 
        employees.Add(employee) 
        employee = New Employee() 
        employee.FirstName = "Steven" 
        employee.LastName = "Buchanan" 
        employee.Position = "Sales Manager" 
        employee.Age = 44 
        employees.Add(employee) 
        employee = New Employee() 
        employee.FirstName = "Michael" 
        employee.LastName = "Suyama" 
        employee.Position = "Sales Representative" 
        employee.Age = 33 
        employees.Add(employee) 
        employee = New Employee() 
        employee.FirstName = "Robert" 
        employee.LastName = "King" 
        employee.Position = "Sales Representative" 
        employee.Age = 28 
        employees.Add(employee) 
        employee = New Employee() 
        employee.FirstName = "Laura" 
        employee.LastName = "Callahan" 
        employee.Position = "Inside Sales Coordinator" 
        employee.Age = 26 
        employees.Add(employee) 
        employee = New Employee() 
        employee.FirstName = "Anne" 
        employee.LastName = "Dodsworth" 
        employee.Position = "Sales Representative" 
        employee.Age = 30 
        employees.Add(employee) 
        Return employees 
    End Function 
End Class

Once all the data is prepared, we may set the RadCarousel's ItemsSource:

Example 4: Setting RadCarousel's ItemsSource

this.MyCarousel.ItemsSource = EmployeeService.GetEmployees();

Me.MyCarousel.ItemsSource = EmployeeService.GetEmployees()

After running the application, you will see the following result:

Figure 1: RadCarousel displaying a list of employees

RadCarousel displaying a list of employees

Display images in RadCarousel

Generally, RadCarousel may be easily used for displaying images and navigating through them. All you need to do is to add those that you want to be visualized in a List for example and set RadCarousel's ItemsSource:

Example 5: Setting RadCarousel's ItemsSource to a list of images

List<Image> myImages = new List<Image>(); 
Image myImage = new Image(); 
myImage.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri("/Images/nature1.jpg", UriKind.Relative)); 
myImage.Height = 200; 
myImage.Width = 200; 
myImages.Add(myImage); 
Image myImage1 = new Image(); 
myImage1.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri("/Images/nature2.jpg", UriKind.Relative)); 
myImage1.Height = 200; 
myImage1.Height = 200; 
myImages.Add(myImage1); 
Image myImage2 = new Image(); 
myImage2.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri("/Images/nature15.jpg", UriKind.Relative)); 
myImage2.Width = 200; 
myImage.Height = 200; 
myImages.Add(myImage2); 
Image myImage3 = new Image(); 
myImage3.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri("/Images/nature19.jpg", UriKind.Relative)); 
myImage3.Height = 200; 
myImage3.Width = 200; 
myImages.Add(myImage3); 
Image myImage4 = new Image(); 
myImage4.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri("/Images/nature26.jpg", UriKind.Relative)); 
myImage4.Height = 200; 
myImage4.Width = 200; 
myImages.Add(myImage4); 
this.MyCarousel.ItemsSource = myImages;

Dim myImages As New List(Of Image)() 
Dim myImage As New Image() 
myImage.Source = New BitmapImage(New Uri("/Images/nature1.jpg", UriKind.Relative)) 
myImage.Height = 200 
myImage.Width = 200 
myImages.Add(myImage) 
Dim myImage1 As New Image() 
myImage1.Source = New BitmapImage(New Uri("/Images/nature2.jpg", UriKind.Relative)) 
myImage1.Height = 200 
myImage1.Height = 200 
myImages.Add(myImage1) 
Dim myImage2 As New Image() 
myImage2.Source = New BitmapImage(New Uri("/Images/nature15.jpg", UriKind.Relative)) 
myImage2.Width = 200 
myImage.Height = 200 
myImages.Add(myImage2) 
Dim myImage3 As New Image() 
myImage3.Source = New BitmapImage(New Uri("/Images/nature19.jpg", UriKind.Relative)) 
myImage3.Height = 200 
myImage3.Width = 200 
myImages.Add(myImage3) 
Dim myImage4 As New Image() 
myImage4.Source = New BitmapImage(New Uri("/Images/nature26.jpg", UriKind.Relative)) 
myImage4.Height = 200 
myImage4.Width = 200 
myImages.Add(myImage4) 
Me.MyCarousel.ItemsSource = myImages

Figure 2 shows the final result:

Figure 2: RadCarousel displaying a list of images

RadCarousel displaying a list of images

Setting a Theme

The controls from our suite support different themes. You can see how to apply a theme different than the default one in the Setting a Theme help article.

Changing the theme using implicit styles will affect all controls that have styles defined in the merged resource dictionaries. This is applicable only for the controls in the scope in which the resources are merged.

To change the theme, you can follow the steps below:

Choose between the themes and add reference to the corresponding theme assembly (ex: Telerik.Windows.Themes.Material.dll). You can see the different themes applied in the Theming examples from our WPF Controls Examples application.
Merge the ResourceDictionaries with the namespace required for the controls that you are using from the theme assembly. For the RadCarousel, you will need to merge the following resources:
- Telerik.Windows.Controls
- Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation

Example 2 demonstrates how to merge the ResourceDictionaries so that they are applied globally for the entire application.

Example 2: Merge the ResourceDictionaries

<Application.Resources> 
    <ResourceDictionary> 
        <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> 
            <ResourceDictionary Source="/Telerik.Windows.Themes.Material;component/Themes/System.Windows.xaml"/> 
            <ResourceDictionary Source="/Telerik.Windows.Themes.Material;component/Themes/Telerik.Windows.Controls.xaml"/> 
            <ResourceDictionary Source="/Telerik.Windows.Themes.Material;component/Themes/Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation.xaml"/> 
        </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> 
    </ResourceDictionary> 
</Application.Resources>

Alternatively, you can use the theme of the control via the StyleManager.

Figure 4 shows a RadCarousel with the Material theme applied.

Figure 4: RadCarousel with the Material theme

RadCarousel with Material theme