Label animation written as code instead of storyboard

Question

I am using an event handler to check every second if the value falls below threshold. If yes, it will display the label text as red. I want to make this label flash. I could use a storyboard but that would be written on the xaml portion and kind of fixed. Is there a way to enable the label to flash on codes written on the MainWindow portion?

public MainWindow()
{
    InitializeComponent();
    CalculateEvent += CPUHandler;
}

void Handler(object sender, MyEventArgs args)
{
    if (args.TotalSum < 5000)
    {
        label11.Foreground = Brushes.Red;
    }
    else
    {
        label11.Foreground = Brushes.White;
    }
}

Answer 1

You don't need a Storyboard. Just assign a (modifiable) SolidColorBrush to the Label's Foreground, and start a ColorAnimation on its Color property:

var colorAnimation = new ColorAnimation
{
    To = Colors.Red,
    Duration = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.1),
    AutoReverse = true,
    RepeatBehavior = new RepeatBehavior(3)
};

var foreground = label.Foreground as SolidColorBrush;

if (foreground == null || foreground.IsFrozen)
{
    foreground = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.White);
    label.Foreground = foreground;
}

foreground.BeginAnimation(SolidColorBrush.ColorProperty, colorAnimation);

You may of course have to play around with the animation's properties like Duration, AutoReverse and RepeatBehaviour, in order to get the desired flashing effect.

---

If you assign the SolidColorBrush directly in XAML like this:

<Label x:Name="label" ...>
    <Label.Foreground>
        <SolidColorBrush Color="White"/>
    </Label.Foreground>
</Label>

you don't need to check for it in code:

label.Foreground.BeginAnimation(SolidColorBrush.ColorProperty,
    new ColorAnimation
    {
        To = Colors.Red,
        Duration = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.1),
        AutoReverse = true,
        RepeatBehavior = new RepeatBehavior(3)
    });

Answer 2

Did you know the tags in the xaml portion are just csharp classes as well?

Sure you can use the Storyboard class! The notation is just a little different.

Check the example at the bottom of this page