WPF Fade Animation

Question

How would I make a control fade in/out when it becomes Visible.

Below is my failed attempt:

Answer 1

I've been coming at this a slightly different way - I've got an extended version of Ray's answer to this question which adds a FadeIn() and FadeOut() extension method to everything that collapses or shows the element as appropriate, then instead of making objects visible I can just call FadeIn() and FadeOut() on them - and it will work an any element without any specific animation code.

    public static T FadeFromTo(this UIElement uiElement, double fromOpacity,
        double toOpacity, int durationInMilliseconds, bool loopAnimation,
        bool showOnStart, bool collapseOnFinish)
    {
        var timeSpan = TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(durationInMilliseconds);
        var doubleAnimation =
              new DoubleAnimation(fromOpacity, toOpacity,
                                  new Duration(timeSpan));
            if (loopAnimation)
                doubleAnimation.RepeatBehavior = RepeatBehavior.Forever;
            uiElement.BeginAnimation(UIElement.OpacityProperty, doubleAnimation);
            if (showOnStart)
            {
                uiElement.ApplyAnimationClock(UIElement.VisibilityProperty, null);
                uiElement.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;
            }
            if (collapseOnFinish)
            {
                var keyAnimation = new ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames{Duration = new Duration(timeSpan) };
                keyAnimation.KeyFrames.Add(new DiscreteObjectKeyFrame(Visibility.Collapsed, KeyTime.FromTimeSpan(timeSpan)));
                uiElement.BeginAnimation(UIElement.VisibilityProperty, keyAnimation);
            }
            return uiElement;
    }

    public static T FadeIn(this UIElement uiElement, int durationInMilliseconds)
    {
        return uiElement.FadeFromTo(0, 1, durationInMilliseconds, false, true, false);
    }

    public static T FadeOut(this UIElement uiElement, int durationInMilliseconds)
    {
        return uiElement.FadeFromTo(1, 0, durationInMilliseconds, false, false, true);
    }