Question

Could anyone offer me some advice on how I might go about implementing a control in Silverlight that displays image thumbnails that when hovered over, enlarge it to a bigger size?

Answer 1

I did something similar for a button. Here is the code for that – I’m sure you can adapt it easily to work with an image instead. Note that I never actually released this code; it was just an experiment when I was learning Silverlight. Don’t take it as an example of best practise.

XAML:

<UserControl x:Class="GrowingButton.Page"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" 
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" 
    Width="400" Height="300">
    <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="White">
        <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
            <ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
            <ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
        </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>

        <Grid.Resources>
            <Storyboard x:Name="growStoryboard">
                <DoubleAnimation
                    Storyboard.TargetProperty="Width"
                    Storyboard.TargetName="testButton"
                    Duration="0:0:0.1"
                    By="20">
                </DoubleAnimation>
                <DoubleAnimation
                    Storyboard.TargetProperty="Height"
                    Storyboard.TargetName="testButton"
                    Duration="0:0:1"
                    By="-20">
                </DoubleAnimation>
            </Storyboard>
            <Storyboard x:Name="shrinkStoryboard">
                <DoubleAnimation
                    Storyboard.TargetProperty="Width"
                    Storyboard.TargetName="testButton"
                    Duration="0:0:1"
                    By="-20">
                </DoubleAnimation>
                <DoubleAnimation
                    Storyboard.TargetProperty="Height"
                    Storyboard.TargetName="testButton"
                    Duration="0:0:0.1"
                    By="20">
                </DoubleAnimation>
            </Storyboard>
        </Grid.Resources>
        <Button x:Name="testButton" Content="Test" Grid.Column="1" MouseEnter="Button_MouseEnter" MouseLeave="Button_MouseLeave" VerticalAlignment="Center" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Width="50" Height="50">
        </Button>
    </Grid>
</UserControl>

Code:

public partial class Page : UserControl
{
    public Page()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    private void Button_MouseEnter(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
    {
        this.shrinkStoryboard.SkipToFill();
        this.growStoryboard.Begin();
    }

    private void Button_MouseLeave(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
    {
        this.growStoryboard.SkipToFill();
        this.shrinkStoryboard.Begin();
    }
}