I can't animate a custom property in WPF - wpf

Question

I've been struggling with this for hours and I can't find out what I'm doing wrong. Please help me find my mistake.
I created a user control with one custom dependency property and I want to animate this property.
Here is my class:
public partial class UserControl1 : UserControl
{
public UserControl1()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
public long Val
{
get { return (long)GetValue(ValProperty); }
set {
SetValue(ValProperty, value);
// Update a text block for debug
((Class1)this.Resources["class1"]).Val = value;
}
}
public static readonly DependencyProperty ValProperty =
DependencyProperty.Register("Val", typeof(long), typeof(UserControl1), new UIPropertyMetadata(0L));
}
Here is the code that is supposed to animate it (there's an instance of UserControl1 called usercontrol11):
Int64Animation myAnimation = new Int64Animation();
myAnimation.From = 100;
myAnimation.To = 200;
myAnimation.Duration = new Duration(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1));
Storyboard.SetTargetName(myAnimation, userControl11.Name);
Storyboard.SetTargetProperty(myAnimation, new PropertyPath(UserControl1.ValProperty));
Storyboard myStoryboard = new Storyboard();
myStoryboard.Children.Add(myAnimation);
myStoryboard.Begin(this);
I also tried the XAML approach, but it didn't work either (in the following XAML, the Width animation works fine, but the Val doesn't):
<my:UserControl1 HorizontalAlignment="Left" Width="150" Margin="72,45,0,0" x:Name="userControl11" VerticalAlignment="Top" Background="#FFFFD100">
<my:UserControl1.Triggers>
<EventTrigger RoutedEvent="MouseEnter">
<EventTrigger.Actions>
<BeginStoryboard>
<Storyboard>
<Int64Animation To="300" Duration="0:0:1"
Storyboard.TargetProperty="Val" />
<DoubleAnimation To="300" Duration="0:0:1"
Storyboard.TargetProperty="Width" />
</Storyboard>
</BeginStoryboard>
</EventTrigger.Actions>
</EventTrigger>
</my:UserControl1.Triggers>
</my:UserControl1>
Any help will be much appreciated!

Answer 1

Well, it's actually animated. You're just checking in the wrong place, animation won't call Val property set accessor. You can, for example, override OnPropertyChanged method to see changes:
protected override void OnPropertyChanged(DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
base.OnPropertyChanged(e);
if(e.Property == ValProperty)
{
MessageBox.Show(e.NewValue.ToString());
}
}