WPF transition performance

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C#

XAML

WPF

Hi all!

Im developing wpf application where mainwindow presents one view (view = UserControl) at the time. Moving between views launches storyboard where old view is replaced new one with slide effect. Views dimension are 1024 x 768 and transiton takes about 0,5 seconds.

So far I have been developing my application with "dummy" views which is basically usercontrol with image background and thats it. Transitions works smoothly.

Recently I have been developing my views, adding real ui components like buttons, comboboxes and custom usercontrols on it and codebehind code and now I faced real problem. My transition are laggy and not smooth at all!

So is there any tips to increase my transition performance? maybe disabling / changing my usercontrol state while in transition?

UPDATE:

I'll add some code to show basic idea to easilly reproduce example application. Just create new wpf application " TransitionTest"

MainWindow.xaml

<Window x:Class="TransitionTest.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        Title="MainWindow" Height="768" Width="1024">
    
    <Window.Resources>
        <Storyboard x:Key="SlideIn" >
            <ThicknessAnimation Duration="0:0:0.5" Storyboard.TargetProperty="Margin" From="1024,0,0,0" To="0" DecelerationRatio="1" />
        </Storyboard>
    </Window.Resources>
    
    <Grid x:Name="mainView">      
        <ContentPresenter x:Name="contentPresenter" Grid.Row="0"> </ContentPresenter>        
        <Button Height="30" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" Content="Load UserControl" Click="LoadUserControl_Click"></Button>
    </Grid>
</Window>

and event handler for button in MainWindow.cs

private void LoadUserControl_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
      {
          //in practice we have multiple usercontrols filled with custom ui components / usercontrols and codebehind code
          //in this example create usercontrol on the fly..
          UserControl View = new UserControl();
          View.Background = Brushes.Green;
          contentPresenter.Content = View;

          Storyboard showNewPage = Resources["SlideIn"] as Storyboard;
          showNewPage.Begin(contentPresenter);
      }

Hope you got idea :)

Appreciate your thoughts!

Cheers!