Animation when changing ContentTemplate - wpf

Question

I have a window where different controls had to be displayed over time. I searched for a solution with using the mvvm pattern and ended up with this
<ContentControl Content="{Binding}">
<ContentControl.Style>
<Style TargetType="ContentControl">
<Style.Triggers>
<DataTrigger Binding="{Binding ViewType}" Value="RecipeList">
<Setter Property="ContentTemplate" Value="{StaticResource RecipeTemplate}"/>
</DataTrigger>
<DataTrigger Binding="{Binding ViewType}" Value="Default">
<Setter Property="ContentTemplate" Value="{StaticResource DefaultTemplate}"/>
</DataTrigger>
</Style.Triggers>
</Style>
</ContentControl.Style>
</ContentControl>
This works fine so far but i'm curious about two things:
is there a better approach with mvvm?
how can i execute an animation for the items in the new datatemplate that is about to be shown?

Answer 1

For the question #2:
You could use EventTrigger in controls within you templates to start animation like it is done below:
<Window x:Class="WpfApplication1.MainWindow"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="525">
<Grid>
<Grid.Triggers>
<EventTrigger RoutedEvent="FrameworkElement.Loaded">
<BeginStoryboard>
<Storyboard x:Name="SomeStoryBoard"/>
</BeginStoryboard>
</EventTrigger>
</Grid.Triggers>
</Grid>
</Window>

Answer 2

Since Animations are View-Specific actions, they should be run from the Code-Behind the View, not the ViewModel. In the past, I've hooked into an Event and just run the following from the code-behind:
Storyboard animation = (Storyboard)panel.FindResource("MyAnimation");
animation.Begin();
As for question #1, I don't see any problem with your code for displaying a different View based on a property in the ViewModel.