Problems with XAML WPF 4.0 Editor in VS2010 - wpf

Wondering if anybody else has found some very odd behaviour with the XAML/WPF 4 editor in VS2010, and can explain what is going wrong. This only occurs if the project is using .NET 4.
Whenever I tried to open a XAML document for editing, the window would appear to open for a split second and then vanish, but VS2010 would still list the window as open.
The fault was eventually traced to having the "Reuse current document window, if saved" option under "Documents" in the "Environment" options checked. Once this was unchecked XAML 4 files opened as expected.
As I said, this only appears to occur on projects targeted at .NET Framework 4 - those targeted at 3.5 worked without a problem, and the "Reuse current document window, if saved" appears to work fine on other files.

you can use online XAML editor http://www.silverlightshow.net/news/New-Online-XAML-Interface-Designer-Released-Open-Source.aspx

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Behaviours in wpf apps Microsoft expression blend 4

I am using Microsoft expression blend 4 and i want to add a simple button,in a wpf application, which by clicking it(on "Run Project" mode) navigates the user to another existing wpf application in expression blend 4.This can be done by using a method but maybe I used the wrong method or i used the right method the wrong way.To be more specific i dragged on the button(that i want to make the task i mentioned) the "Launch UriOrFile Action" method but i realised(by making experiments with various files on desktop and using internet url's) that i can only link the running wpf application with random files or internet sites and not to another wpf application as i wanted(when i put the path of the wpf application it pops up a window saying"windows explorer has stopped working",something that didnt occured when i put random file's paths or internet sites url's).If anyone understands my problem let me know!thanks!!
Check out Process.Start. Create a command that fires code that calls that method.

Visual Studio 2010 - XAML Editor Extraordinarily Slow

Has anyone else experience incredibly slow performance in the XAML editor in VS 2010? If I have a new project with a limited number of files, the performance is fine. However, if I have a project with a larger number of XAML files, the XAML editor hangs intermittently every few seconds, making it almost impossible to use.
I should also note that the performance is only slow in one particular project where I am referencing DevExpress 2010. I am not certain if this is related.
Any suggestions on solutions to this problem would be greatly appreciated.
Chris
In Visual Studio 2012:
Go to
Tools > Options > TextEditor > XAML > Misc
Check Always open documents in XAML view and uncheck Automatically populate toolbox items.
In Visual Studio 2015, 2017:
Go to
Tools > Options > XAML Designer
uncheck Automatically populate toolbox items.
This fixed my same problem.
If you don't need the visual designer, you can select a different editor in visual studio:
Right click the xaml file -> Open With... -> Source Code (Text) Editor
You will only lose the split view, intellisense etc. should still work.
If you need to check something in the designer you can still click 'view designer' to open the normal XAML editor again.
If you want to improve the performance of the visual designer, try checking DesignerProperties.GetIsInDesignMode in your code-behind. The visualiser instantiates your controls to know how to display them, thus executing parts of the code-behind.
Like the OP, I had extreme lag in the xaml editor on a project that relied heavily on DevExpress WPF controls. After trying unsuccessfully to resolve this issue with the other solutions posted here, I eventually tried deleting my Solution User Options (.suo) file, which is usually located in the same folder as the solution (.sln) file. This immediately resolved the issue. You may want to read this post about what visual studio stores in the suo file so you can reset anything important (such as build configuration - mine always defaults the active solution platform back to "Mixed Platforms" for example)
Short answer: if you do not use designer much, just replace the default editor for XAML, thus getting rid of XAML visual designer and speeding things up. Right click any XAML file, click Open with... and choose another default editor. Source code (text) editor works just fine.
Now it should be already fine. If you want to understand the details and completely get rid of the slow designer, read the long answer.
Long answer: Here is a nice explanation of what happens and why is it that slow.
A brief todo based on the aforementioned article in order to completely disable the visual designer of XAML:
Under Tools->Options->Text Editor->XAML->Miscellaneous->Default View check Always open documents in full XAML view
Open Task manager and end XAML Designer process XDesProc.exe (Note: for VS2013 right click this process and go to containing folder. Rename the exe to sth else, than end the process)
Standard XAML editor will load this process again (I guess it will not succeed with VS2013 and actions done in P.2). However, right click any XAML file, Open with... and choose another default editor. Source code (text) editor works just fine.
While using dev express, I've noticed some laggy response in the Visual Studio designer. This appears to be due to the license authentication of the DevExpress products.
If you delete the "Licenses.Licx" file (found in the project properties folder) you'll notice a marked improvement in performance.
Note: Removing the license file doesn't stop you from using DevExpress controls. But it does stop VS from constantly authenticating it.

WPF DocumentViewer doesn't show the document

I'm using a DocumentViewer to view a FixedDocument and on 2 machines (out of over 500) the document viewer does not show the document.
Edit: ok, it's not a bug in WPF and the DocumentViewer control works perfectly, I'm leaving this question unchanged in case someone else hits the same problem, see my answer for the solution.
The document viewer is using a custom ControlTemplate based on this MSDN sample (mostly to remove the search box)
The toolbar, scrollbar and background all show up but the scrollbar is disabled and the content are is blank (background color)
I'm sure the document is ok because printing the document works.
I don't have any access to those machines, one of them is running Vista in what looks like a standard configuration, I don't even know what version of Window the other one is running.
The application is targeting .net 3.5
Did anyone here ever had a similar problem? do you have any idea what's causing it?
Thanks.
Here's what happened, I was using PrintDialog to get the default printer's paper size in order to create the FixedDocument, according to the docs and all my tests you can use PrintDialog without actually opening the dialog or actually printing anything and everything works just fine.
But on some computers (probably due to misbehaving printer drivers) this doesn't work, so on those computers the returned paper size was incorrect, I actually don't know it the size was too small or two big but it caused the code generating the FixedDocument to fail some internal sanity check and produce and empty document - that the DocumentViewer control then displayed correctly by showing nothing.

Using WPFPerf to profile a WPF 4.0 application doesn't show me any information

I am trying to use WPFPerf to profile a WPF 4.0 application (I have the latest WPFPerf that should work on WPF 4.0 aps). I start the tool Visual Profiler from WPFPerf, I start my aplication, but after that nothing happens and the element tree from the Visual Profiler is empty. No other error message is shown. Can anyone tell me what am I not doint right?
As an additional information, when I try to analize my .exe assembly or any other assembly from my application, I get a BadFormatException saying that the assembly was build with a newer version of .NET. From the download page http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=191420
I see that this version of WPFPerf should be ok for my app
TimeZone patch to WPF Performance Profiling Tools for WPF 4 is now available
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jgoldb/archive/2010/08/24/timezone-patch-to-wpf-performance-profiling-tools-for-wpf-4-is-now-available.aspx
First check to see if its working even with a small blank WPF application. If it is not working with a blank WPF app, then it likely is the patch already mentioned: TimeZone patch to WPF Performance Profiling Tools for WPF 4 is now available
However, in my case that wasn't the issue. Visual Profiler has a bug that causes it not to display the Element tree if it doesn't like some of the characters in its main window title bar.
Through hours of trial and error, I was able to trace the root cause of why it would not work on our application even though it would on a blank WPF application. The reason is that our application has a special character in the title bar text (trademark). If we eliminate the special character from the main window title, the element tree shows fine when the visual profiler is attached. I was able to reproduce this issue in the simple blank WPF application too simply by putting the following property on the main window:
<Window ..... Title="Test Application™" >
Looks like a bug in Visual Profiler that somehow is triggered by special characters. I didn't test for other special characters, but likely it isn't just this one.
So the workaround is to remove the special character while you are profiling until they fix this.

Linked Themes/Generic.xaml Files will not work in visual studio 2008

i have a project that i am doing and i need to share the code between silverlight and WPF Assembly problem is that even though the wpf assembly is the owner of that file
and the silverlight assembly only has a link to the file, all of the build actions are page everything is correct. if i make the silverlight assembly the owner then silverlight works and wpf doesnt, and currently with wpf being the owner i dont get any errors at all it just never styles the control like it cannot find it..
Note: both projects exists in the same solution.
this scenario builds and runs fine
wpf project
|__Themes
|__Generic.xaml
|__SomeControl.cs
this scenario builds and runs but will not display the control
if i change them from linked to normal it will work fine.
i just want to share this source code and not have multiple versions of the same file floating around.
SilverlightProject
|__Themes
|__"Linked"Generic.xaml
|__"Linked"SomeControl.cs
sorry for my corny Tree view representation
+++++++ UPDATE +++++++++
i have noticed when using any linked file regardless of if it is silverlight or WPF
the link file will not build into the Themes folder in the resource only the root.
i used reflector to see where my resources ended up after compilation of the assembly including the linked file and they ended up in the root , so with that being said. is there a way to prevent this or a fix for this if this is indeed non intended behavior .
i would really love to get this figured out as it has been driving me insane for a while now.
Silverlight XAML and WPF XAML do not have the same namespace - so they aren't directly reusable.
My mistake - you're right - now with Silverlight 3 the namespaces are the same:
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml
What is the Build Action in the Property Pane for the XAML?

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