Silverlight: Cannot resolve TargetProperty or OMG how hard can it be to debug this cr...p

Sorry for the title of this post, but a little bit frustrated after using a looong time to find out why my animations didn't work.

I tried rotating two usercontrols on a page, and I constantly got this runtime-error:

        Cannot resolve TargetProperty (UIElement.Projection).(PlaneProjection.RotationY) on specified object.

My setup was a kind of Master-Detail story, where I wanted the details usercontrol to rotate in when selecting an item in my master-control.

So I already had my ViewModel, my States and Messages setup and working.

Now I just wanted to try to get that sweet rotation thingie going, and that's the part that was giving me some headache:

My VisualState was something like this:

        <VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>

            <VisualStateGroup x:Name="Visning">

                <VisualState x:Name="Liste">

                    <Storyboard>

                        <DoubleAnimationUsingKeyFrames BeginTime="00:00:00" Storyboard.TargetName="List"

                                        Storyboard.TargetProperty="(UIElement.Projection).(PlaneProjection.RotationY)">

                            <DiscreteDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="00:00:00" Value="0" />

                            <EasingDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="00:00:00.2500000" Value="90">

                                <EasingDoubleKeyFrame.EasingFunction>

                                    <PowerEase EasingMode="EaseIn"/>

                                </EasingDoubleKeyFrame.EasingFunction>

                            </EasingDoubleKeyFrame>

                            <DiscreteDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="00:00:00.25" Value="-90" />

                            <EasingDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="00:00:00.5000000" Value="0">

                                <EasingDoubleKeyFrame.EasingFunction>

                                    <PowerEase EasingMode="EaseOut"/>

                                </EasingDoubleKeyFrame.EasingFunction>

                            </EasingDoubleKeyFrame>

                        </DoubleAnimationUsingKeyFrames>

                        <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetName="Details"

                                         Storyboard.TargetProperty="(UIElement.Visibility)">

                            <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="00:00:00.25" Value="Collapsed" />

                        </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>

                        <ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetName="List"

                                        Storyboard.TargetProperty="(UIElement.Visibility)">

                            <DiscreteObjectKeyFrame KeyTime="00:00:00.25" Value="Visible" />

                        </ObjectAnimationUsingKeyFrames>

                    </Storyboard>

                </VisualState>

                <VisualState x:Name="Detaljer">

                        …. the opposite….

                </VisualState>

            </VisualStateGroup>

        </VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>

And my two Usercontrols:

        <views:TilbudsListe x:Name="List">

        </views:TilbudsListe>

        <views:TilbudDetaljer x:Name="Details" Visibility="Collapsed">

        </views:TilbudDetaljer>

When using these Storyboards, I get the aforementioned runtime-exception:

        Cannot resolve TargetProperty (UIElement.Projection).(PlaneProjection.RotationY) on specified object.

I tried googling this, I checked my code, my xaml, my naming, my eyes, my keyboard…. etc but just couldn't get this to work.

Finally I saw someones examplecode, looking kind-of half finished I thought:

        <Rectangle x:Name="rectangle" Stroke="Black" Height="113" Width="170" Canvas.Left="102" Canvas.Top="83" Fill="#FFF64040">

                <Rectangle.Projection>

                        <PlaneProjection/>

         </Rectangle.Projection>

        </Rectangle>

At first I had just thought that the empty Rectangle.Projection properties was because of some code he had tried and then forgotten to remove.

But then it struck me; could this be the  "magic" needed for xaml/silverlight to put the missing properties on my usercontrols?

And it was. Here is the revised usercontrols:

        <views:TilbudsListe x:Name="List">

            <views:TilbudsListe.Projection>

                <PlaneProjection/>

            </views:TilbudsListe.Projection>

        </views:TilbudsListe>

        <views:TilbudDetaljer x:Name="Details" Visibility="Collapsed">

            <views:TilbudDetaljer.Projection>

                <PlaneProjection/>

        </views:TilbudDetaljer.Projection>

        </views:TilbudDetaljer>

This obviously (?) works, and my two views now rotate in and out.

Arrrgggggh!

I want the last two hours back!  Now!!

Better luck for anyone reading this…

rgds

Henri Merkesdal

Posted via email from Henris blogg