How to: Animate the Size of a FrameworkElement

To animate the size of a FrameworkElement, you can either animate its Width and Height properties or use an animated ScaleTransform.

In the following example animates the size of two buttons using these two approaches. One button is resized by animating its Width property and another is resized by animating a ScaleTransform applied to its RenderTransform property. Each button contains some text. Initially, the text appears the same in both buttons, but as the buttons are resized, the text in the second button becomes distorted.

Example

<!-- AnimatingSizeExample.xaml
     This example shows two ways of animating the size
     of a framework element. -->
<Page 
  xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" 
  xmlns:x="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
  x:Class="Microsoft.Samples.Animation.AnimatingSizeExample" 
  WindowTitle="Animating Size Example">    
  <Canvas Width="650" Height="400">

    <Button Name="AnimatedWidthButton"
      Canvas.Left="20" Canvas.Top="20"      
      Width="200" Height="150"
      BorderBrush="Red" BorderThickness="5">
        Click Me
      <Button.Triggers>

        <!-- Animate the button's Width property. -->
        <EventTrigger RoutedEvent="Button.Loaded">
          <BeginStoryboard>
            <Storyboard>
              <DoubleAnimation
                Storyboard.TargetName="AnimatedWidthButton"
                Storyboard.TargetProperty="(Button.Width)"
                To="500" Duration="0:0:10" AutoReverse="True" 
                RepeatBehavior="Forever" />
            </Storyboard>
          </BeginStoryboard>
        </EventTrigger>
      </Button.Triggers>
    </Button>

    <Button 
      Canvas.Left="20" Canvas.Top="200"
      Width="200" Height="150"
      BorderBrush="Black" BorderThickness="3"> 
        Click Me
      <Button.RenderTransform>
         <ScaleTransform x:Name="MyAnimatedScaleTransform" 
          ScaleX="1" ScaleY="1"  />
      </Button.RenderTransform>
      <Button.Triggers>

        <!-- Animate the ScaleX property of a ScaleTransform
             applied to the button. -->
        <EventTrigger RoutedEvent="Button.Loaded">
          <BeginStoryboard>
            <Storyboard>
              <DoubleAnimation
                Storyboard.TargetName="MyAnimatedScaleTransform"
                Storyboard.TargetProperty="(ScaleTransform.ScaleX)"
                To="3.0" Duration="0:0:10" AutoReverse="True"
                RepeatBehavior="Forever" />
            </Storyboard>
          </BeginStoryboard>
        </EventTrigger>
      </Button.Triggers>      
    </Button>
  </Canvas> 
</Page>

When you transform an element, the entire element and its contents are transformed. When you directly alter the size of an element, as in the case of the first button, the element's contents are not resized unless their size and position depend on the size of their parent element.

Animating the size of an element by applying an animated transform to its RenderTransform property provides better performance than animated its Width and Height directly, because the RenderTransform property does not trigger a layout pass.

For more information about animating properties, see the Animation Overview. For more information about transforms, see the Transforms Overview.