Load a Page into a ContentControl - xaml

Question

I have a ContentControl where I want to load the page myPage2. My XAML Codefrom this page looks like this:
<Page x:Class="ExampleApp.myPage2">
<Grid x:Name="Content" Height="651" Width="941" Background="White">
...
...
</Grid>
</Page>
I know that I can load a resource from a page with this Code:
protected override DataTemplate SelectTemplateCore(object item, DependencyObject container)
{
var contentControl = (ContentControl)container;
return (DataTemplate) contentControl.Resources[templateKey];
}
My problem now is that I can't load a page like above with this code. I have to write this:
<Page x:Class="ExampleApp.myPage2">
<Page.Resources>
<DataTemplate x:Key="Test">
<Grid x:Name="Content" Height="651" Width="941" Background="White">
...
...
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
</Page.Resources>
</Page>
And then I can load the page with the same Code from above with templateKey="Test". But the main problem is that I want to use the first declaration of the page and do not want to use <Page.Resources> <DataTemplate x:Key="Test"> and so on. I want to load the site direcly from the first declaration (first code in this post). How can I create a DataTemplate directly from a page? Or is there an other way to load a page into a ContentControl?

Answer 1

There is no reason to use a Page within a ContentControl. A Page is a subclass of the UserControl class that adds support for being used within a Frame control to support navigation, back stack/history, etc. You should probably replace Page with UserControl in XAML and code behind, so you would end up with something like this:
<UserControl x:Class="ExampleApp.myControl2">
<Grid x:Name="Content" Height="651" Width="941" Background="White">
...
...
</Grid>
</UserControl>
You can put the UserControl itself in a DataTemplate if you want to use it as a DataTemplate in a ContentControl:
<ContentControl
xmlns:controls="using:ExampleApp">
<ContentControl.Resources>
<DataTemplate
x:Key="Test">
<controls:myControl2 />
</DataTemplate>
</ContentControl.Resources>
</ContentControl>