Animating background color of border in Silverlight, State precedence in VisualStateGroups

Question

This is a silverlight/XAML question.

Not sure what I'm doing wrong, this seems to throw an error:

<ColorAnimation 
Storyboard.TargetName="btnRemoveBorder" 
Storyboard.TargetProperty="Background" 
To="#FFDEBA29" 
Duration="0" />

2nd question is... rather confused with the Selected and Focused states. Can one state take precedence over another?

Answer 1

Background is not a Color but instead a Brush which is why it can't be animated directly with a ColorAnimation. Instead try the following.

<ColorAnimation 
    Storyboard.TargetName="btnRemoveBorder" 
    Storyboard.TargetProperty="(Border.Background).(SolidColorBrush.Color)" 
    To="#FFDEBA29" 
    Duration="0" />

With regard to the VisualStateManager question, one state from each state group can be active. So in the case of a Button for example, it can be in both the Focused and Pressed state. For this reason, you should try to design your states and control templates in such a way that does not depend on which state becomes active first. Usually this means you shouldn't animate the same element/property in two different state groups. But technically speaking, there's nothing preventing you from doing so. Whichever state the control goes to last (using the VisualStateManager.GoToState method) will take precedence.