How to animate the background of a textblock when changing the value of the bound property?

Question

I have a pretty simple wpftoolkit:datagrid to show stock market bid and ask.

My grid is bound to an ObservableCollection<PriceViewModel>. My PriceViewModel implements INotifyPropertyChanged.

The grid correctly updates and I have managed to get the background color to animate but it is intermittent in apply the animation.

Below is the XAML and snippet of the view model class.

The idea is just to color red when a price update is lower than the previous and green when it's higher...nothing too fancy.

     <WpfToolkit:DataGrid Name="PriceDataGrid" RowHeaderWidth="5" 
AutoGenerateColumns="False" VerticalContentAlignment="Center" Margin="0,33,0,0" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Width="868">
        <WpfToolkit:DataGrid.Columns>
            <WpfToolkit:DataGridTemplateColumn Header="Bid"  MinWidth="40">
                <WpfToolkit:DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate>
                    <DataTemplate>
                        <TextBlock Text="{Binding Bid}" Margin="3,1" x:Name="txtTextBlock">
                            <TextBlock.Background>
                                <SolidColorBrush Color="Transparent"></SolidColorBrush>
                            </TextBlock.Background>
                        </TextBlock>
                        <DataTemplate.Triggers>
                            <DataTrigger Binding="{Binding BidUp}" Value="True">
                                <DataTrigger.EnterActions>
                                    <BeginStoryboard>
                                        <Storyboard>
                                            <ColorAnimation 
                                                BeginTime="00:00:00"
                                                Duration="0:0:0.1" 
                                                To="Green" 
                                                AutoReverse="True"
                                                Storyboard.TargetName="txtTextBlock" 
                                                Storyboard.TargetProperty="(TextBlock.Background).(SolidColorBrush.Color)">
                                            </ColorAnimation>
                                        </Storyboard>
                                    </BeginStoryboard>
                                </DataTrigger.EnterActions>
                            </DataTrigger>
                            <DataTrigger Binding="{Binding BidDown}" Value="True">
                                <DataTrigger.EnterActions>
                                    <BeginStoryboard>
                                        <Storyboard>
                                            <ColorAnimation 
                                                BeginTime="00:00:00"
                                                Duration="0:0:0.1" 
                                                To="Red" 
                                                AutoReverse="True"
                                                Storyboard.TargetName="txtTextBlock" 
                                                Storyboard.TargetProperty="(TextBlock.Background).(SolidColorBrush.Color)">
                                            </ColorAnimation>
                                        </Storyboard>
                                    </BeginStoryboard>
                                </DataTrigger.EnterActions>
                            </DataTrigger>
                        </DataTemplate.Triggers>
                    </DataTemplate>
                </WpfToolkit:DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate>
            </WpfToolkit:DataGridTemplateColumn>
            <WpfToolkit:DataGridTextColumn Header="Ask" Binding="{Binding Path=Ask}" MinWidth="40" />
        </WpfToolkit:DataGrid.Columns>
    </WpfToolkit:DataGrid>

And the view model:

public class PriceViewModel : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

    Price _price;

    private bool _bidUp = false;
    private bool _bidDown = false;


    public bool BidUp
    {
        get
        {
            return _bidUp;
        }

        set
        {
            _bidUp = value;
            OnPropertyChanged("BidUp");
        }
    }
    public bool BidDown
    {
        get
        {
            return _bidDown;
        }

        set
        {
            _bidDown = value;
            OnPropertyChanged("BidDown");
        }
    }

    public double Bid 
    { 
        get { return _price.Bid; }
        set
        {
            BidUp = (value > _price.Bid);
            BidDown = (value < _price.Bid);

            _price.Bid = value; 
            OnPropertyChanged("Bid");
        } 
    }

    public double Ask 
    { 
        get { return _price.Ask; } 
        set 
        {
            AskUp = (value > _price.Ask);
            _price.Ask = value; 
            OnPropertyChanged("Ask"); 
        } 
    }


    public PriceViewModel(Price price)
    {
        _price = price;
    }

    private void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName)
    {
        if(PropertyChanged != null)
            PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
    }

}

Answer 1

I tried this and it seems to work better if you stop the Storyboards before you start the new one. To stop a Storyboard, name it and call

<StopStoryboard BeginStoryboardName="bidUpStoryboard"/>

Try it like this

<DataTemplate.Triggers>
    <DataTrigger Binding="{Binding BidUp}" Value="True">
        <DataTrigger.EnterActions>
            <StopStoryboard BeginStoryboardName="bidUpStoryboard"/>
            <StopStoryboard BeginStoryboardName="bidDownStoryboard"/>
            <BeginStoryboard Name="bidUpStoryboard">
                <Storyboard BeginTime="00:00:00">
                    <ColorAnimation 
                        BeginTime="00:00:00"
                        Duration="0:0:0.1" 
                        To="Green" 
                        AutoReverse="True"
                        Storyboard.TargetName="txtTextBlock" 
                        Storyboard.TargetProperty="(TextBlock.Background).(SolidColorBrush.Color)">
                    </ColorAnimation>
                </Storyboard>
            </BeginStoryboard>
        </DataTrigger.EnterActions>
    </DataTrigger>
    <DataTrigger Binding="{Binding BidDown}" Value="True">
        <DataTrigger.EnterActions>
            <StopStoryboard BeginStoryboardName="bidUpStoryboard"/>
            <StopStoryboard BeginStoryboardName="bidDownStoryboard"/>
            <BeginStoryboard Name="bidDownStoryboard">
                <Storyboard BeginTime="00:00:00">
                    <ColorAnimation 
                        BeginTime="00:00:00"
                        Duration="0:0:0.1" 
                        To="Red" 
                        AutoReverse="True"
                        Storyboard.TargetName="txtTextBlock" 
                        Storyboard.TargetProperty="(TextBlock.Background).(SolidColorBrush.Color)">
                    </ColorAnimation>
                </Storyboard>
            </BeginStoryboard>
        </DataTrigger.EnterActions>
    </DataTrigger>
</DataTemplate.Triggers>

Also, if BidUp is set to true two times in a row, it won't trigger the second time since it will go from true to true, so if you want the flashing effect to appear each time a value changes you will have to set it to false at some point. e.g.

public double Bid
{
    get { return _price.Bid; }
    set
    {
        BidUp = false;
        BidDown = false;
        BidUp = (value > _price.Bid);
        BidDown = (value < _price.Bid);
        _price.Bid = value;
        OnPropertyChanged("Bid"); }
}