What is the best way to slide a panel in WPF?

Question

I have a fairly simple UserControl that I have made (pardon my Xaml I am just learning WPF) and I want to slide the off the screen. To do so I am animating a translate transform (I also tried making the Panel the child of a canvas and animating the X position with the same results), but the panel moves very jerkily, even on a fairly fast new computer. What is the best way to slide in and out (preferably with KeySplines so that it moves with inertia) without getting the jerkyness. I only have 8 buttons on the panel, so I didn't think it would be too much of a problem.

Here is the Xaml I am using, it runs fine in Kaxaml, but it is very jerky and slow (as well as being jerkly and slow when run compiled in a WPF app).

  <UserControl xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Width="1002" Height="578">
     <UserControl.Resources>            
        <Style TargetType="Button">
           <Setter Property="Control.Padding" Value="4"/>
           <Setter Property="Control.Margin" Value="10"/>
           <Setter Property="Control.Template">
              <Setter.Value>
                 <ControlTemplate TargetType="Button">
                    <Grid Name="backgroundGrid" Width="210" Height="210" Background="#00FFFFFF">
                       <Grid.BitmapEffect>
                          <BitmapEffectGroup>
                             <DropShadowBitmapEffect x:Name="buttonDropShadow" ShadowDepth="2"/>
                             <OuterGlowBitmapEffect x:Name="buttonGlow" GlowColor="#A0FEDF00" GlowSize="0"/>
                          </BitmapEffectGroup>
                       </Grid.BitmapEffect>
                       <Border x:Name="background" Margin="1,1,1,1" CornerRadius="15">
                          <Border.Background>
                             <LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="0,1">
                                <LinearGradientBrush.GradientStops>
                                   <GradientStop Offset="0" Color="#FF0062B6"/>
                                   <GradientStop Offset="1" Color="#FF0089FE"/>
                                </LinearGradientBrush.GradientStops>
                             </LinearGradientBrush>
                          </Border.Background>
                       </Border>
                       <Border Margin="1,1,1,0" BorderBrush="#FF000000" BorderThickness="1.5" CornerRadius="15"/>
                       <ContentPresenter HorizontalAlignment="Center" Margin="{TemplateBinding Control.Padding}" 
                        VerticalAlignment="Center" Content="{TemplateBinding ContentControl.Content}" 
                        ContentTemplate="{TemplateBinding ContentControl.ContentTemplate}"/>
                    </Grid>
                 </ControlTemplate>
              </Setter.Value>
           </Setter>
        </Style>
     </UserControl.Resources>
     <Canvas>
        <Grid x:Name="Panel1" Height="578" Canvas.Left="0" Canvas.Top="0">
           <Grid.RenderTransform>
              <TransformGroup>
                 <TranslateTransform x:Name="panelTranslate" X="0" Y="0"/>
              </TransformGroup>
           </Grid.RenderTransform>
           <Grid.RowDefinitions>
              <RowDefinition Height="287"/>
              <RowDefinition Height="287"/>
           </Grid.RowDefinitions>
           <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
              <ColumnDefinition x:Name="Panel1Col1"/>
              <ColumnDefinition x:Name="Panel1Col2"/>
              <ColumnDefinition x:Name="Panel1Col3"/>
              <ColumnDefinition x:Name="Panel1Col4"/>
     <!-- Set width to 0 to hide a column-->
           </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
           <Button x:Name="Panel1Product1" Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="0" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center">
              <Button.Triggers>
                 <EventTrigger RoutedEvent="Button.Click" SourceName="Panel1Product1">
                    <EventTrigger.Actions>
                       <BeginStoryboard>
                          <Storyboard>
                             <DoubleAnimation BeginTime="00:00:00.6" Duration="0:0:3" From="0" Storyboard.TargetName="panelTranslate" Storyboard.TargetProperty="X" To="-1000"/>
                          </Storyboard>
                       </BeginStoryboard>
                    </EventTrigger.Actions>
                 </EventTrigger>
              </Button.Triggers>
           </Button>
           <Button x:Name="Panel1Product2" Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="1" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
           <Button x:Name="Panel1Product3" Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="0" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
           <Button x:Name="Panel1Product4" Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="1" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
           <Button x:Name="Panel1Product5" Grid.Column="2" Grid.Row="0" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
           <Button x:Name="Panel1Product6" Grid.Column="2" Grid.Row="1" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
           <Button x:Name="Panel1Product7" Grid.Column="3" Grid.Row="0" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
           <Button x:Name="Panel1Product8" Grid.Column="3" Grid.Row="1" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Center"/>
        </Grid>
     </Canvas>
  </UserControl>

Answer 1

It looks like the best solution so far, is to use a Visual Brush and move two static images when sliding in and out the panels. Something similar to this is described in this blog post:

Using animated navigation pages in a WPF application (switched to web archive, but this is from 2008 so no promises if it is still the best technique).