Unable to add WPF controls to the toolbox in Visual Studio 2013 - wpf

First of all, I am completely new to Visual Studio, so please don't be too judgmental. I have a project I need to do in C# for my studies and my team uses a GitHub repository. I am in charge of creating the GUI and I am stuck at the very beggining.
I want to create the main application window using WPF, but when I use toolbox > choose items, I can not see the WPF tab. Also, when I am trying to enable the designer view, nothing happens.
Is it perhaps the software version being Visual Studio Community 2013 causing the issue? Do I need to have the Visual Studio Professional version in order to use WPF toolbox?
I'm attaching a link to the screen of the situation below.

As I presumed, all I needed was the professional version of Visual Studio. After obtaining and installing it everything works fine.

Related

MVVM Light templates not showing in "Add Item" menu (VS 2017)?

I've installed MVVM Light Toolkit through NuGet in VS 2017. The problem is that when I click "Add New Item" on any project, I don't see any MVVM templates that appear in MVVM Light tutorials.
They must look like this (but I don't see them in my project):
http://prntscr.com/n9bs1q
I found similar questions about VS 2012. The answers advise to search for C:\Program Files (x86)\Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft)\Mvvm Light Toolkit\Vsix
But I have no such folder not in Program Files (x86), neither in Program Files.
Help me please, what should I do for the templates to appear?
MVVM Light NuGet can only add related resources (assemblies/.cs files) into the project. It wont add Templates into Visual Studio. To get templates in Visual Studio, you have to install MVVM Light Visual Studio Extension by following the below steps.
Open Visual Studio and go to Tools->Extensions and Updates.
In the Extensions and Updates window lick Online in the left pane.
In the search bar, type MVVM Light.
In the search results find MVVM Light for VS2017. Click Download and accept license.
Extension will be installed once Visual Studio gets restarted. Then you can get the templates.
UPDATE:
They have stopped support of Item Templates for MVVM Light in Visual Studio 2017. Its been there up to VS 2015. So you can only get Project Templates (File->New Project) in VS 2017 extension. You can see similar queries here.

Visual Studio 2017 Live Visual Tree shows empty for WPF

I installed VS 2017 v.15.6.3 and trying to debug a WPF application (running Test method to start WPF instance in same solution with attached process). Live Visual Tree shows blank and returns no result. I couldn't select any control to view in the visual tree. Any help would be appreciated.
Note: I checked all options under Enable UI debugging Tools for XAML and valdiated XamlDiagnostics.DLL in the machine.
Visual Studio 2017 Live Visual Tree shows empty for WPF
I do not think Visual Studio support Live Visual Tree for test project even if it start WPF instance in same solution with attached process.
The application should be WPF for Live Visual Tree to work.
So, to get the Live Visual Tree, please debug the WPF application directly.
Hope this helps.

How do you edit styles in WPF 4.5 under Windows 7?

I just realised that Blend for Visual Studio 2012 does not support WPF apps under W7.
Once I opened a window I can only see raw XAML.
I need to edit a style for a chart dataseries System.Windows.Controls.DataVisualization.Charting. I normally use Blend for these kind of tasks - because it pulls default styles from somewhere and gives it to you in a blink of an eye.
now I am stuck.. what would you guys do?
P.S. here is nice summary for future references: http://blendinsider.com/technical/available-now-blend-for-visual-studio-2012-2012-08-15/
(scroll down to see the table what version supports what)
You need to use the Blend Preview that supports WPF apps.
http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/jj154135
How can I design an animation with a WPF project in Visual Studio 2012?
Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 will have a released version of Blend which supports WPF...in the meantime use the preview one.
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/

Issues with WPF controls and Visual Studio Toolbox

Installing WPF Controls onto a machine is a messy task.
I tested installation in various systems including VMs. Following are the issues I have seen.
Controls not installed in the VS Toolbox.
Controls are isntalled but, cannot be dragged-n-dropped onto the WPF Window
Duplicate entries in the Toolbox sometimes!
I do not know what is wrong with the ToolboxControlsInstaller package. It messes up the Toolbox all the time, well most of the times.
Any guidelines what is the best practices to install WPF controls?
Our customers are very annoyed with these Toolbox behaviors.
Any help is welcome!
Regars,
-Datte
Our customers were annoyed too.
So I wrote this tutorial article covering toolbox installation once and for all:
Visual Studio Toolbox Control Integration
The most convenient approach seems to be using the Toolbox Controls Installer (TCI) package already pre-installed in VS2010 and newer. This includes just adding a key in registry, i.e.
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ToolboxControlsInstaller\SampleControl, Version=3.7.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=3cc4c7b61201d46c
You can also specify a custom tab name.
If you don't have a custom installer for your components, wrapping the DLLs in a VSI or VSIX package may be convenient. The VSIX is more powerful, support quiet install, custom tab name and uninstallation, but only VS2010 or newer.
Be careful with registry + VS2012. I discussed how the registry should be updated for VS2012, or simply call:
devenv.exe /ResetSkipPkgs
and then
devenv.exe /Setup
To clear things up.
Sometimes one also have to clear the Toolbox cache (TBD files), which seems to be a quite evil thing!
How do you install WPF controls into toolbox? However, these are all common issues with Visual Studio toolbox if you(or someone while installing other components) have done some mistakes in configuring. Refer the below links which has suggestions to avoid these issues.
Installing controls to VS 2010 procedure : How to add my custom WPF control to the ToolBox by using the WPF ToolBox Control template
Icons messed up issue : Visual studio 2005 toolbox icons messed up (though this is not reported with VS 2010, this solution would work for VS 2010 also).

ReportViewer (.rdlc) light designer for WinForms

Are there any other ReportViewer designer beside the Visual Studio (with GUI of course I know that any XML/TEXT editor can change definition of .rdlc file) ?
One day when I finish my rich (fat) client application at all, Ill love to try embed in report designer, so end users can do cosmetics modification of theirs report files without having installed Visual Studio.
Sub question, does this feature have CrystalReport service ?
I tried an opensource editor: http://www.fyireporting.com/products.html, and it works! (I have several WinForms apps which use the ReportViewer from Visual Studio 2008). You can, of course, download the sources also and adapt it if needed.
Visual Studio Community is Free and includes all the functionality of Visual Studio Professional.
http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-community-vs.aspx

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