How do I get an animated gif to work in WPF?

Question

What control type should I use - Image, MediaElement, etc.?

Answer 1

Adding on to the main response that recommends the usage of WpfAnimatedGif, you must add the following lines in the end if you are swapping an image with a Gif to ensure the animation actually executes:

ImageBehavior.SetRepeatBehavior(img, new RepeatBehavior(0));
ImageBehavior.SetRepeatBehavior(img, RepeatBehavior.Forever);

So your code will look like:

var image = new BitmapImage();
image.BeginInit();
image.UriSource = new Uri(fileName);
image.EndInit();
ImageBehavior.SetAnimatedSource(img, image);
ImageBehavior.SetRepeatBehavior(img, new RepeatBehavior(0));
ImageBehavior.SetRepeatBehavior(img, RepeatBehavior.Forever);