Silverlight 3 RTW --> Designer gone, nope.. u can get it back!

rfcdejong posted on Monday, July 13, 2009

I remember that i hate the designer because of the performance, but sometimes it's easy to know how your grid, stackpanel and some changes in code has a visual effect by just looking at the designer. But in Silverlight 3 RTW it seems they removed the designer completely, this because not to delay Silverlight 3 outroll.

Gladly it isn't gone, a preview designer is still available, but just hidden.

When u have an xaml open in silverlight:

- move your mouse down in the xaml workspace;
- there is a very small spot where your cursor becommes a vertical splitter:
- move the splitter up and an disabled designer becomes visible;
- hit "reload the designer"

There a limited designer becomes available, just for previewing :)

Mark Richardson replied on Monday, July 13, 2009

Thanks for posting this, I was wondering did they remove the designer for 3.0.

I thought it was a ploy by MS to get you to buy Expression Blend for design support.

JonM replied on Monday, July 13, 2009

I dont even use the designer in regular WPF let alone silverlight (slow). I remember early on I played with WPF and did the whole drag and drop with the designer. Then when silverlight2 came out I thought my VS was broken when I could'nt to the same in SL. It turns out that the "designer" in SL was readonly. Is it still like this is SL3?

rfcdejong replied on Tuesday, July 14, 2009

It's readonly yes, just for preview.

In VS2010 there'll be a better designer (they say)