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c# WPF XAML RelativeSource reference to ComboBox.Resources item

I am working on a reusable template for a WPF ComboBox. I am able to dynamically change the font color, background, and border by using these references in the template:
Foreground="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType=ComboBox}, Path=Foreground}"
BorderBrush="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType=ComboBox}, Path=BorderBrush}"
Background="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType=ComboBox}, Path=Background}"
These were easy since I had properties I could reference.
<ComboBox Margin="90,62,0,0" Height="26" Width="302"
HorizontalAlignment="Left" VerticalAlignment="Top"
Focusable="False" IsReadOnly="True" MaxDropDownHeight="202"
Foreground="White" Background="SteelBlue" BorderBrush="White"
Style="{StaticResource ComboBoxFlatStyle}"
ItemContainerStyle="{StaticResource ComboBoxItemFlatStyle}">
What I would like to do is reference the following in a similar manner:
<ComboBox.Resources>
<SolidColorBrush x:Key="ComboBoxHighlightBrush" Color="RoyalBlue" />
</ComboBox.Resources>
Is it possible to reference a resource inside the control? I really want to be able to reuse this template on another ComboBox using difference colors.

I was fairly certain the answer was no, but then again ControlTemplates are bound to the targeted type's properties at run time right? So then I thought as long as "Resources" is an accessible property of the ComboBox object at run time there should be a way. I verified by using snoop that "Resources" was indeed a readable property at run time:
Since Resources is just a dictionary, I then tried to set the background of the combobox dropdown to a resource defined exactly the same way as you did by adding these attributes to the "DropdownBorder" element in the default ComboBox control template:
Background="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource TemplatedParent}, Path=Resources[ComboBoxHighlightBrush]}"
This will likely give you a compile time error saying that "Resources" is not accessible - but it's not an error that'll truly prevent you from building the solution and running it. At run time you'll see that it indeed works!
Despite it working, I'm not sure this is the best way to go about making your template reusable. Other than the annoying compile-time error, a consumer of the template will have to know about this magic string in order to add a correctly keyed brush to the resource dictionary.
I would consider the following:
A common way to lightly add to the behavior of an existing UI control is to used attached properties. You can bind to attached properties in ControlTemplates. This way you have something typed and not relying on a magic string.
Create a full on custom control. In my UI project I often have a need to have default text or a docked item at the top of my combobox drop down, so I created a custom control which has additional dependency properties that allows these features, but also allows me to modify colors that WPF's ComboBox doesn't let me out of the box.
Edit Based on your code, I think my interpretation of your question using ControlTemplates is correct.. if not the above won't make sense. If so, I also want to mention you should probably do bindings like
Foreground="{TemplateBinding Foreground}"
instead of
Foreground="{Binding RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType=ComboBox}, Path=Foreground}"
If anything just for easier reading. It's also a faster binding iirc.

Is it possible to bind to a property on the container of the Adorned Element?

In my WPF app we are using an adorner for displaying validation messages, in the particular case there is a single row grid that has multiple controls some of which have validation. The problem I'm having is that I want to force the width of the error message control to be the same as the grid but can't seem to find a way to reference that grid from the adorner template. Here is a sample of what I tried:
<ControlTemplate x:Key="Local_TopAdornedTemplateWide">
<StackPanel>
<AdornedElementPlaceholder x:Name="adornedElement"/>
<TextBlock MaxWidth="{Binding Path=ActualWidth, RelativeSource={RelativeSource FindAncestor, AncestorType=Grid}, ElementName=adornedElement}"
TextWrapping="Wrap"
Text="{Binding Converter={StaticResource Local_ValidationErrorMessageConverter}}"
Style="{DynamicResource Error_Text}"
Padding="2 1 0 0"
Visibility="{Binding ElementName=adornedElement, Mode=OneWay, Path=AdornedElement.IsVisible, Converter={StaticResource BooleanToVisibilityConverter}}"
/>
</StackPanel>
</ControlTemplate>
This causes the application to crash with an XamlParseException.
Ideally the solution would not be specific to a grid so that it would get the width of any container type, but for now grid is the only use case.
Edit:
Here is an example of another template we use in the application; this template would not work for my case as it would limit the error to be the width of a single column of the aforementioned grid:
<ControlTemplate x:Key="Local_TopAdornedErrorTemplate">
<StackPanel>
<AdornedElementPlaceholder x:Name="adornedElement"/>
<TextBlock MaxWidth="{Binding ElementName=adornedElement, Path=ActualWidth}"
TextWrapping="Wrap"
Text="{Binding Converter={StaticResource Local_ValidationErrorMessageConverter}}"
Style="{DynamicResource Error_Text}"
Padding="2 1 0 0"
Visibility="{Binding ElementName=adornedElement, Mode=OneWay, Path=AdornedElement.IsVisible, Converter={StaticResource BooleanToVisibilityConverter}}"
/>
</StackPanel>
</ControlTemplate>
Using snoop I captured the following two screenshots (I could not take one of the full stack to prevent posting anything proprietary)
This shot shows the grid I mentioned previously, within this it is the FinancialTextBox item that is being adorned
This shot shows two things, the item selected in blue is the highest ancestor of the grid in the previous shot, the yellow highlight is the Textbox from the content template
With those two it seems to be apparent that (based on information from Contango's answer) the two items aren't not in the same visual tree which would lead me to believe my question is not possible. However the second template I added (which does work) points that at least some visual information from the adorned element lives on in the place holder.
So now my question boils down to a) does this information include the parent of the adorned element and b) how can this be accessed via a binding on a different element?

This ended up being a lot simpler than the path I was trying to go down.
I was doing some reading on the AdornedElementPlaceholder class and came across this entry on MSDN and noticed that the class actually has a property called parent, with that I tried the following binding and it works perfectly:
MaxWidth="{Binding ElementName=adornedElement,
Mode=OneWay,
Path=AdornedElement.Parent.ActualWidth}"

WPF is quite powerful and flexible.
You can bind any property in any XAML tag to any property in any other XAML tag.
For example, you could write a test app that binds the Text property of an input box to the Text property of a label, so as you type something into the text box, the label would change automatically (assuming you use UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged). This is a direct XAML to XAML binding, with no C# in sight.
Similarly, you could bind the width of your error box to the width of the parent control, whatever that may be.
Google RelativeSource and AncestorType, this is a great link:
http://druss.co/2013/10/wpf-binding-examples/
See if you can grok how the Visual Tree and Logical Tree works in WPF, once you understand that, you will understand more of how binding works.
I'd also recommend using the free tool Snoop to look at the Visual Tree. XAML Spy is excellent, but not free.
Snoop can tell you if there is anything that has a bad binding at runtime (you set the filters up, and it will list all bad bindings).
You can use Snoop to get the full XAML path of your source (the XAML you wrote above), then get the full XAML path of the target (i.e. the ActualWidth of your Grid), then compare them: it may be quickly apparent that one is not the ancestor of the other, as they are on different branches of the visual tree, or that there is some other issue which is preventing a simple walk up the visual tree from working.
If you just want to get something working, as a proof of concept, try naming the target XAML grid using x:Name, and reference it by name instead of AncestorType.

Unset/Change Binding in WPF

How can I unset the binding applied to an object so that I can apply another binding to it from a different location?
Suppose I have two data templates binded to the same object reference.
Data Template #1 is the default template to be loaded. I try to bind a button command to a Function1 from my DataContext class:
<Button Content="Button 1" CommandParameter="{Binding }" Command="{Binding DataContext.Function1, RelativeSource={RelativeSource AncestorType={x:Type Window}}}"/>
This actually works and the function gets binded. However, when I try to load Data Template # 2 to the same object (while trying to bind another button command to a different function (Function2) from my DataContext class):
<Button Content="Button 2" CommandParameter="{Binding }" Command="{Binding DataContext.Function2, RelativeSource={RelativeSource AncestorType={x:Type Window}}}" />
It doesn't work and the first binding is still the one executed. Is there a workaround to this?
EDIT (for better problem context):
I defined my templates in my Window.Resources:
<Window.Resources>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:ViewModel1}">
<local:View1 />
</DataTemplate>
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type local:ViewModel2}">
<local:View2 />
</DataTemplate>
</Window.Resources>
The View1.xaml and the View2.xaml contain the button definitions that I described above (I want them to command the control of my process flow).
ViewModel1 and ViewModel2 are my ViewModels that implement the interface IPageViewModel which is the type of my variable CurrentPageViewModel.
In my XAML, I binded ContentControl to the variable CurrentPageViewModel:
<ContentControl Content="{Binding CurrentPageViewModel}" HorizontalAlignment="Center"/>
In my .CS, I have a list defined as List<IPageViewModel> PageViewModels, which I use to contain the instances of my two View Models:
PageViewModels.Add(new ViewModel1());
PageViewModels.Add(new ViewModel2());
// Set starting page
CurrentPageViewModel = PageViewModels[0];
When I try to change my CurrentPageViewModel to the other view model, this is when I want the new binding to work. Unfortunately, it doesn't. Am I doing things the right way?

If for some reason you are unable to use just two different DataTemplates, usually because the datatemplates are very large or complex, i suggest using ContentControl and DataTemplateSelector.
In your DataTemplates place another ContentControl, create 2 DataTemplates just containing your button, one with Function1 one with Function2. Create a DataTemplateSelector and set it on the initial ContentControl. The DataTemplateSelector now just need to select the proper template depending on a decision, for example the type of the item or a property on the item etc.

If you still want to unset binding you can do it from code like:
BindingOperations.ClearBinding(txtName, TextBox.TextProperty)
But TemplateSelector approach will be more efficient.

WPF implicit datatemplate with observablecollection

I'm new to WPF and using MVVM. I have a view in which I want to display different content according to what a user selects on a menu. One of those things is another user control Temp which has a view model (TempVM) so I am doing this:
<ContentControl Content="{Binding Path=TempVM}"/>
and TempVM (of type TempViewModel)is null until the user clicks a button. Its data template is this
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type vm:TempViewModel}">
<view:Temp />
</DataTemplate>
That's fine, but the other thing I want to do is show a listbox when a user clicks a different menu item. So I am trying to do
<ContentControl Content="{Binding Path=Missions}"/>
(Missions is an observable collection of MissionData) and trying to template it like this:
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type ObservableCollection(MissionData)}">
<StackPanel>
<ListBox ItemsSource="{Binding}" SelectedItem="{Binding Path=MissionData, Mode=TwoWay}" DisplayMemberPath="MissionName" SelectedValuePath="MissionId" />
<Button Content="Go"/>
</StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>
But the compiler doesn't like the type reference. If I try doing it by giving the template a key and specifying that key in the ContentControl it works but obviously I see the ListBox and button when there's no Missions. Obviously I could make a user control and viewmodel and follow the same pattern as I did for the TempVM but it seems over the top. Am I going the right way about this and what do I need to do?

From what i see is that you try to use a Collection as a dataobject which is in my opinion bad practice. Having a DataTemplate for a collection is also problematic, like you already have witnessed. I would advice you to use a ViewModel for your missions collection.
class MissionsSelectionViewModel
{
public ObservableCollection<Mission> Misssions;
public MissionData SelectedMission;
public ICommand MissionSelected;
}
and modify your datatemplate to
<DataTemplate DataType="{x:Type MissionsSelectionViewModel}">
<StackPanel>
<ListBox ItemsSource="{Binding Missions}" SelectedItem="{Binding Path=MissionData, Mode=TwoWay}" DisplayMemberPath="MissionName" SelectedValuePath="MissionId" />
<Button Content="Go" Command="{Binding MissionSelected}/>
</StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>

If I were to follow your pattern of implicit templates, I would derive a custom non-generic collection MissionDataCollection from ObservableCollection<MissionData> and use it to keep MissionData items. Then I would simply reference that collection in DataType. This solution gives other advantages like events aggregation over the collection that are useful.
However, it seems to me that the best solution is the following.
Add a IsMissionsListVisible property to your VM.
Bind the Visibility property of the ContentControl showing the list to the IsMissionsListVisible property.
Use a keyed DataTemplate resource.
Implement the logic that determines if IsMissionsListVisible. Supposedly it should be true when there is at least one mission in the selected item. But the logic may be more complex.
I would do it this way. In fact, I do it this way usually, and it gives several benefits. The most important is that I can explicitly control the logic of content visibility in various situations (e.g. async content refresh).

Binding with a converter inside a template

I have defined a DataTemplate for a ListBox. Inside the template, I use TextBlock controls to display the properties of the data context. For example:
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=FirstName}" />
And if I do this:
<TextBlock Visibility="{Binding Path=IsAccountValid}" />
...the application runs, but there is a warning in the output about trying to bind a boolean property to a Visibility enumeration.
If I do this:
<TextBlock Visibility="{Binding Path=IsAccountValid,Converter={StaticResource visibilityOfBool}}" />
and somewhere in my App.xaml is:
<BooleanToVisibilityConverter x:Key="visibilityOfBool" />
I get a null reference exception.
I suspected this might be because the property IsAccountValid is not a dependency property, so I added a CheckBox to the window, and did this:
<TextBlock Visibility="{Binding Path=IsChecked,Converter={StaticResource visibilityOfBool},ElementName=butA}" />
But got the same error.
Why? The DataContext object is valid because if I bind IsAccountValid to the Text property, the value is correctly displayed.
The converter is never called, so I am wondering if it is the converter that cannot be found.
Why can the converter not be found? Why can the converter be found outside the data template and not inside the data template?
I tried building the template again with Blend, as Blend usually gets it right, but the code it generated was the same as mine.
I tried some of the fixes suggested on this website, including setting RelativeSource to TemplateParent and Self, but it made no difference.
What is going on?

We use such converter all the time in our Data Templates. Do you define the converter key inside your resource dictionary? Merge another Resource Dictionary?

The IsAccountValid property doesn't have to be a dependency property. If the converter couldn't be found then you wouldn't be able to open the form. You have the right approach using the converter but it is difficult to say exactly what is causing the exception without seeing more information.

As Amittai and Chris pointed out, it seems that you're headed in the right direction. I know it sounds a bit stupid, but try to add a space between the comma and the Converter= statement in the binding. Like so:
<TextBlock Visibility="{Binding Path=IsAccountValid, Converter={StaticResource visibilityOfBool}}" />
On some systems there are weird symptoms when there's no space after the comma. I couldn't find the actual reason for that.

Thank you all for your help in my investigation.
I have solved the problem.
These two lines of code are included in the DataTemplate, one is a TextBlock, and one is a hyperlink:
<TextBlock Text="Hello" Visibility="{Binding IsChecked,ElementName=chkBox,Converter={StaticResource visibilityOfBool}}" />
and
<TextBlock Grid.Column="1" >
<Hyperlink Click="ProgHomePageHyperlink_Click" >
<TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=Title}" />
</Hyperlink>
</TextBlock>
When they are both included in the code, the runtime throws a null reference exception.
But if I comment one of them out, either the TextBlock or the HyperLink, everything runs ok.
If I remove the Click handler from the hyperlink, everything runs ok.
If I comment out the converter in the TextBlock, the application runs, but I get a mismatched binding warning, which is well deserved.
So, including a Click handler in the hyperlink means the converter in the TextBlock cannot be found.
How weird is that!