Jaime Rodriguez : blend

Design-time data in Expression Blend

jaimer — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:20:30 GMT

Well- behaved, unobtrusive design-time data is essential for designers to create high-fidelity data templates and get a comprehensive view of the scene they are designing. If you agree, here is a must read on the common approaches to implementing design-time data inside blend (and Cider); the write-up covers:

The common ways to use ObjectDataProvider for design-time data. Pros & cons for each.
My favorite way to do design-time data via an Attached behavior..

The source is available here. The paper is here on HTML, XPS, and DOCX.

Let me know if I missed any thing..

Using Uris in Expression Blend

jaimer — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:07:10 GMT

Last week, Unni and Pete explained to me how Blend resolves Uris. In this post, I will attempt to explain the details and the possible solution.

Details:
We already knew that at design-time, Blend loads your window, usercontrols, or what every you are designing, in its main process (and main AppDomain).
In the default scenario, this would imply that all Uris will not work (since they resolve relative to Blend’s application) but there is some special handling in Blend to handle Uris in XAML. Blend reads the XAML and alters the Uri references so that they resolve relative to the file:// path of the designed application, instead of relative to Blend’s application.

For the most part, Blend does a good job and from XAML your Uris will work fine, but you will notice issues when you are resolving Uris that are not in the parsed XAML:

If you have design-time data, and the Uri’s are coming from data bindings, then blend can not intercept these and fix them.
If your Uris are coming from code that is executing while in design-time then Blend has no way of fixing them and your code is likely going to throw an exception or not resolve.

Solution:

As you already know, I like absolute Uris and the pack syntax; so I am going to stick with it, but now I have to emphasize that you use the full syntax (including the component part) on the Uri. If you do this, Blend seems to resolve very well on most scenarios, including code and bindings!!

I will say it again, full Uri including component part. For example:

pack://application:,,,/Images/happyface.png is wrong. This will work from XAML, but not from code. It needs to be
pack://application:,,,/WpfApplication6;component/Images/happyface.png If you do this, Blend resolves well all the time!

Note: I labeled it possible solution because I am aware that not every one likes the full pack syntax. It can be cumbersome. I also have to explain, that not every one needs this solution, you only need it when the Uris come from code and are needed at design-time (in Blend). Mixing and matching Uris might be a good compromise.

Want to see more?
This sample shows all kinds of different paths to resolve an image.
As you can see, at design-time, the binding ones and the ones that come from code, do work when using a full path.

Blend, design-time	Run-time

Happy blending!!

"The New iteration" a paper on designer/developer collaboration using XAML...

jaimer — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 23:40:00 GMT

Karl (of mole fame) emails me about "The new iteration" article that Karsten and I wrote a while ago...

The paper attempts to do a lot in a few pages:

Introduce XAML ( in the context of HTML, SVG and the likes) for those not familiar with WPF.
Introduce the workflow you can get when developers and designers create UI using XAML: You get a common language that stream lines collaboration between these two roles. This reduces duplicate work and allows each role to use tools optimized for their specific tasks ( Blend for designers, VS 2008 for developers)..
Provide high level advise on roles and skills when you collaborate to this extent..
Share a few of our lessons learned from many WPF early adopter projects..
Provide tactical advise for those who already took the journey to WPF and XAML..

Please do send us your feedback .. there were a lot of topics we know we did not get to, I am hoping I can tackle some of these via blog posts or screencasts..

Going back to my old notes on every thing we did not get to I had:
Controls, Styles, Templates FAQ
Tips & Tricks on Blend.. way Beyond this very old article..
Tips & tricks on Blend + Cider, way beyond this intro old intro stuff..
Expression Designer (there was a lot we just did not get into)
Tips & trickcs on creating data-driven apps..( I guess this overlaps w/ tips & tricks above)..

What else do you want to hear about?? Let us know; I am keeping a list and even if I move really, really slow... I will eventually get to it..

Expression Blend2 Sept Preview released.. a must 'upgrade' for WPF and silverlighters .

jaimer — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:16:00 GMT

Blend2 Sept Preview was released last friday to the public... An overview of the new features is in the Expression team's blog...

Please do not miss the link to the videos that showcase the new features; watching all the videos takes approx 20 mins and you will get a lot out of them.

My experience so far after a week of internal use:

The new vertex animation stuff just rocks... it makes things so much easier..
I have been using the ability to create reverse storyboards for triggers quite a bit; that was a must do...
The ability to edit KeyFrames is much better explained in the video than in the blog post; the blog description is accurate, but you don't get the part of "graphically modifying the splines".. (or was it just me that did not get it the first time? Splines are above my level any way :( )
On object manipulation, the "Ctrl-drag" to copy is very handy too.. and the multi-object transform is useful too ..
Splitview is very handy... love it since Cider beta2..
BreadCrumbBar is handy -- but if you are looking for it in Silverlight, I don't think it is there.. it seems to be WPF only...

Overall the release rocks.. It feels solid; I did not get crashes or instability...
For you WPFers, there is just too much goodness to pass; I would say even if you had RTM of 1.0 you should give this a try..
For you silverlighters, you should continue to pick CTPs as there will continue to be improvements to the alpha ..

My immediate wishlist is for next CTP is "Selection sync" in the splitview like Cider does .... Christmas is coming.. cross your fingers or send my buddy unni some ~~cash~~ emai..

PS -- { I did not know there were videos in the external post, so I had just created a few lame 5 min samples of what I can do now with vertex animations in silverlight . Since I ftped them, might as well link to them ... Chart, Arrow, Circle ... ... this is your chance to show off... create some thing cooler, that should not be hard, and email me a 'you oughta take a design class dude' email...

Happy blending

Getting Expression Blend May Preview to launch Visual Studio when you click on a JS file..

jaimer — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 16:41:00 GMT

When working on Silverlight 1.0 projects.. it kind of annoyed me that Blend launches notepad to edit my JS file... I tried going into Windows and tell it to always "open" JS files with Visual Studio... (via OpenWith in the shell ) ... but Blend kept launching notepad.. why??

The shell associates the "open" command with VS .. that was working fine.. but blend used the "Edit" command instead of "open" ... So, I had to configure Windows to "edit" .JS files with Visual Studio by editing the registry entry at
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\JSFile\Shell\Edit\Command\(Default), the command is set to Notepad and I had to edit the registry entry and change it to point to devenv.exe:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe [for a default location VS 2005 install]
or C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe [for a default location VS 2008 "Orcas" installed" ] ...

Now, when I double click on a JS file in Blend May Preview, it launches VS ...

Expression Design tips...

jaimer — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 06:34:00 GMT

Expression Design tips I learned while at the Express Yourself contest in San Fran last week.. :

The list of features that design does not support when importing Adobe illustrator files is in the readme ... It is here..
To use the Clipboard ( Cut & Paste ) between Design with Expression Blend, you should set the options under Edit -> Options -> Clipboard (XAML)... here you get options similar to what you do when selecting File-> Export XAML ... The default settings are for WPF... so if doing silverlight you need to change these...

Along with those two tips there a few common issues that you will have to workaround ... [the design team is on top of these, but likely needs to wait for a Service pack or similar]

Design works in WPF device independent units 1/96 of an inch.. It does all conversions for you .. So highly recommended you work at 96 DPI .. If you work at say 72 DPI you are going to see your export to be 4/3 the size you expected...
Design puts an <?xml > directive on top of their files.. Though this is still valid XML ... CreateFromXaml ( ) does not parse it ... [this applies to using downloaded object and creating from XAML in a file.. I believe it works fine if you use the Xaml files as a Source..
Design automatically generates names ... (Group1, Group2, Path1, etc. ) which can be an issue for Silverlight since it likes Unique names... [this is only issue if loading two files into single object ... a simple replace of x:Name=" to x:Name="prefix does the trick .. .

PS -- The contest results were quite impressive... stay tuned at the VisitMix.com blog where I think they will show the videos of the competition ..

tool to create motion path animations for silverlight...

jaimer — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 05:20:00 GMT

One animation that is in WPF and not silverlight is AnimationUsingPath .. [you create a path, and have an element animate following that path] ..

For quick prototypes, I thought it would be handy to fake path animations by capturing the keyframes and replaying them in silverlight... I can do it all with out code or math, which is nice for designer's doing rapid prototyping..
The gist:

Create an animation in Blend for a WPF project ..
Add the control in the sample code below to the WPF page that has your animation..
[optional] configure a couple of settings if the control guesses them wrong..
Click Capture --
Now you have KeyFrames you can cut & paste into a Silverlight animation...

Create a dummy translate animation in Silverlight project for your same element..
Replace the keyFrames inside the animation with the ones from the tool ..
An extra nicety is that once you have done that, you can replay the silverlight animation using blend..

Here is what the control looks like:

The settings:

Animation Name == name of storyboard you want it to run.. (used to call begin on it )
Element to Animate == name of UIElement target of the animation: ( used to capture its transform at each keyframe)
KeyFrame type: Spline or Linear?
Frames per second -- how often to sample..

If you are a coder, all of these properties can be set programmatically via dependency properties ... Look at Page3.xaml in the harness attached with the source.

Here are a couple of quick samples of results: ball and fly.. [created by SysTim, thanks bro] ... and my original ball and fly
Disclaimer: the paths were created rather quickly and I sampled at only 30 fps .. you likely need to tweak the settings and paths for a smoother experience.. and do some math and code for perfect/production smoothness .. but for prototypes the tool is handy and you can tweak the animation before and after in blend..

The source code for the control is here .. If you create a better showcase animation let me know or put a comment pointing to it.

Interesting posts for week of 6/4 to 6/10 ...

jaimer — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 08:12:00 GMT

I traveled most of the week so did not blog ... from the blogs, I read here are some of my 'faves' for the week..

Glenn Plock shares details on the future or Smart Client Software factory and migration to Acropolis
Jon galloway shares his thoughts on SVG and XAML ...
Only addition to his thoughts/concerns would be that it is very doable to use Illustrator to get to XAML ...Illustrator has a free 30 day trial.. Once in illustrator, not only try the plug-in to export... you can also try opening the ai file with Expression Design... and exporting the xaml from there... I have great results lately with Design's capability to read AI and export as xaml.
{note: expression design also has a 30 day trial, this whole thing is still free}
Free designer training ( Blend and Design ) from lynda.com ... Tim has the details..
Dwayne blogged about HostVisual and creating non-interactive WPF UI in background threads ... good stuff, I subscribed to his blog in hopes he continues to post..
Microsoft User eXperience Evangelist (UXEs) are aggregating their blog at http://design-for-innovation.com/ ... These are sharp designers who know a lot about user experience; though the aggregation is still in the works , it might be worth keeping an eye on it ..
Peggi wrote the most complete article in writing a WIC enabled codec. I worked with an ISV that wrote a WIC Codec for their Vista version of their software; they were quite happy with the 'benefits' ... which Peggi summarizes much better than I ever would:
"Building your CODEC on the Windows Imaging Component platform makes it possible for all applications built on WIC to get the same platform support for your image format as they get for the common image formats shipped with the platform. It also enables the Windows Vista Photo Gallery, Explorer, and Photo Viewer to display thumbnails and previews of images in your format using the decoder that you provide. For Raw formats, it enables more sophisticated imaging applications to take advantage of your decoder's Raw processing capabilities. Depending on the encoder options you support, you can also expose unique capabilities of your encoder to enable applications to take full advantage of the advanced features of your image format" ...
[FYI, WPF is built on WIC, so once you have the codec you will be able to open your custom image format with an <Image Source=".. " /> tag ...]

Cool stuff I heard about :

BBC is using Photosynth 3D to create a show .. has good links to photosynth stuff..
Darren David (ex-Fluid, Northface kiosk extraordinaire) talks about a very impressive WPF app he worked on ..
He mentions the challenge of Multi-input UI ... which the Surface team have solved for their platform ... I wonder if Microsoft will ever expose the implementation for use outside of Surface??

[Movies]

I watched Hannibal rising on the plane from NY to seattle ( my hands cramp if I type on plane) ... fell asleep.. the first 15 mins were interesting cause it explained the 'why?' ... the rest was gory fill-time..
I went to theater for "Ocean's 13" ... I was a fan of Ocean's 11 so I had to go see this one.. Though I laughed a few times, quite a bit of the movie was a little too far fetched for me ... I wish I had waited for video instead of theater..

Desktop matters conference report ..

jaimer — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 23:28:00 GMT

Tim Sneath ( my work boss) emailed me asking how it went , and since I am typing if for my team I thought: "what the heck ... just publish it..."

I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at Desktop Matters last Friday .. It is the "hard-corest" Java conference I have ever attended (disclaimer, I have only attended 2 java conferences: JavaOne and OSCON) ... The conference focuses on client java technologies, a lot of people from Sun's Java2D and Swing team presented.. Also, some influentials building interesting java stuff..

Here are my thoughts:

On the conference:
it was awesome... A small group of Java influentials talking with the Java leaders (Hans Muller, Chet Haase, Richard Bair, etc.) .. there was nothing held back either direction.. The Sun team shared challenges and road-map... the community provided good feedback.. I had a blast and learned a lot ... Read some of their reports here..
The event reminded me of what at Microsoft we call Software Design Reviews ( SDRs ) ... Some of you reading this post might have attended one of these ... You know that it is hard to buy that kind of access, well on the Java client community you might have the answer in this conference..
A nice touch different from the SDR was Ben Galbraith the organizer who kept it light .. making equal fun of every one there

On Java SE and Swing:
I was surprised and (as a technologist) happy to see progress on java and Swing ; their 'filthy rich' demos looked pretty good ; That said, I still think they are very far behind Microsoft (both Windows forms but specially WPF) in tooling, customization, richness, etc.. You can definitely do good stuff on Java, if you are willing to write a bit of code or hire experienced devs.. [yes, I of course acknowledge they do it for the cross-platform promise.. if you must go x-platform and can't go AJAX, I think that is one of the best choices out there]

On my presentation/message:
When I arrived, I had a deck with 40 slides covering the ins of WPF ( templates, styles, resources, etc.) by the second day I had changed it based on a private conversation with Hans Muller - I pitched him on XAML and he seemed overwhelmed with properties, triggers, styles, etc.. but he really got the "oh, makes better tools" idea..

So, in the end, I presented a simple (much slower-paced ):

Why is MS doing WPF..? It is ALL about User Experience; I elaborated that UX is business value to the everyone.
On day 1, the Java folks listed why write client software and the list was usability, richness, performance, leverage local resources, etc.. most of these are factors of user experience.. so it resonated..
UX is also business value for the Dev/ISV/SI selling the solution... It provides differentiation opportunity, branding, pride of ownership, etc.
How is MS we improving UX with WPF?
1. Integration of all our UI Stacks ( Text, 2D, 3D, Video, etc.)
2. Declaratively; we invested in a declarative model to optimize toolability and fully incorporate the designer role into application development .. this is the silver bullet in the long-run; along with rich services to embrace the declarative modell...
What are we doing on x-platform?
(IMHO) WPF/E is a huge step for Microsoft. Not because of what we are delivering in Version1, but because it is a commitment to innovate in client software that runs x-platform. MS is best positioned [we have the framework, WPF, XAML, etc. to act quickly in that space, since we have a lot of the lessons learned - and the code ;)

I did two demos:

The Healthcare demo I was short on time and wanted to keep it focused -- check for a post on that demo later today or tomorrow there is some good news there--.. I think this summarizes well WPF integration since it shows most UI stacks..
I spend 15 to 20 mins in Expression blend building stuff from scratch ;

created the data templates for the healthcare demo ... and
created a 3D button with animation ( triggers on mouse over) ... the latter was mostly to make explain how we compare to Chet's animation engine for his book...

The feedback
I was very surprised on the 'kudos' ... Quite a few people came to me afterwards and shared kind thoughts... I got a lot of "I get your experience message"; and "I love what WPF can do", "XAML seems very neat", etc..

My best two take aways...

An interesting cross-platform combo in the interim? :
While sitting there listening to their challenges, goals, etc. and after receiving the feedback on my presentation I was thinking... what if "XAML was a standard" and the Java community embraced it to create UI? .... They could keep their performant cross platform engine .. but use our tooling to create rich apps" .... does it sound crazy?? I think it is a good interim while MS gets a strong x-platform client out (if we ever do, I can't confirm nor deny, only hope )... The type of apps these folks are writing requires rich development frameworks, rich programming languages, and powerful drawing engines... I can't think of a good solution for that today if you include a good tooling/debug story.
Some lower hanging, more realistic takeaway for Microsoft:
I think we need to re-visit simple styles and create several "cool" versions of simple styles... We have the designer tools.. but there will be teams out there that do not have designers.. We need to pony up for a few good design templates that developers can use to create "cool looking apps" with out a lot of designer support... If MS provides styled primitives then developers could put screens build on these simple styled controls... For example, I recently downloaded the "Roxio" client, nice gradients, stylish controls, yet nothing extreme (other than a few cool vector graphics that could have been images) .. I think with "cool simple styles" this could be accomplish with out much design work...

That is it ... I hope the conference repeats next year .... If it does, I would recommend it if you are a Java client developer ...
I also hope I don't get fired for a post w/ the word java so much ... My first test to see how far I can take it ....

tweaking your wpf code to run in Expression Blend...

jaimer — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 11:29:00 GMT

beta 1 of Expression Blend ( aka Expression Interactive Designer, codename Sparkle) went out a month ago... I hope you are using it now.. I have used it for a while beforexe it went out, it has been very useful for creating animations, templates, styles, etc..

If you have tried to use Blend with existing ( arguably very large) projects coded prior to Blend, you might have seen 'errors' or even crashes when opening your project in blend; don't give up yet! imho blend is not too unstable, once you understand their design-time rules.. (read below to learn some of these)..

Background:
Blend is a WPF application and as such it runs all user interface in a single AppDomain; there fore when you design your app in blend, it tries to load [and run] your code in their executable... so be careful what you feed it :( ...

How and why does it run your code?
There are two instantiation patterns i see in expresssion:

Blend will instantiate the base type of the root element on the design surface.. so for your Window, or UserControl or similar, it is mostly OK..
If you have a UserControl (UC) or Custom control you are droppping into a root document ( the root element described above).. then Blend instantiates YOUR control, and at the minimum runs your constructor ....

if inside your constructor you have code that subscribes to any other events, like Initialized, Loaded, or CompositionTarget.Rendering then you are already telling the UI to call you back for this events [so yet more code to run] ... if any of your code throws an exception, Blend will throw an error...

Here is an example: comments in D00BE8

<Window xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:ExpresssionTests="clr-namespace:ExpresssionTests" x:Class="ExpresssionTests.Window1" Title="ExpresssionTests" Height="377" Width="362">
<Grid>

<ExpresssionTests:UserControl1 Margin="32,51,161,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" Height="108"/>
<ExpresssionTests:MyTextBox Margin="32,21,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" Height="26" Text="MyTextBox" TextWrapping="Wrap" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Width="113"/>
<ExpresssionTests:MyPanel Margin="42,0,161,58" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" Height="92"/>
</Grid>
</Window>

So, it calls your constructor (and executes your code).. why should you care? Your app works great when launched stand-alone (or debugger in VS)..

For a lot of your code, this will be fine... for that slight percentage that it is not find, there are a few possible bad outcomes from it running your code:

Your code does some thing that throws an unhandled exception and crashes Blend..
Your code does some thing that throws an exception and blend handles it, but you get a generic error like "Can not create instance of UserControl1"
Your code might appear to be running OK in blend but it is consuming resources it should not ( e.g. if you are designing a Video Player, and in your player, you are telling it to "autoplay" when loaded, so now you have a video playing at design-time.. [this is not only annoying but consuming resources, so your system slows down :( ]

"Jaime, did you not read that 'my code works fine, I don't expect crashes.' "
Hear ya, but there are a few valid scenarios where your perfect code behaves different when run from within blend.. here are a few commone ones:

Your application is data-driven and your control assumes the context and data models is available at design-time, but it is not ... or your app tries to connect to its datasource and it fails ..
Your application uses the pack syntax ... [ I will come back to this]
Your code tries to access the global Application class or it's MainWindow (but since you are running in Blend, you get Blend's Application class)..

"OK, I get it, how can I get around this?.."

Blend and Cider team added a System.ComponentModel.DesignerProperties class to WPF so you can query if you are in 'design mode'..
You can call System.ComponentModel.DesignerProperties.GetIsInDesignMode( DependencyObject element ) with any valid DependencyObject -translated pretty much any visual- , and find out if you are in the designer;

if you don't have a DependencyObject ( e.g. if you are in your business object and don't want to couple if with UI) then
((bool)DependencyPropertyDescriptor.FromProperty(DesignerProperties.IsInDesignModeProperty, typeof(DependencyObject)).Metadata.DefaultValue)
can do the trick to tell you if you are in design-mode.. even when you don't have a visual * ..

<sideline> Jim Nakashima and Brian Pepin are good sources for info in this design mode property </sideline>

"This sounds messy! I don't want to be crowding code with design-time checks ... what should I do?"
At first, I thought that too ... but it is really not too bad.. in fact, now I would argue it has made my code slightly better: I used to have projects where there was a bit more code than needed in the constructor.. [this code should have been in the Initialized or Loaded events] ... so you just need to refactor your code a little bit.. you can then use the design-time check to possibly not wire these other while in design-time...

Another lazy workaround I used for those more complex projects with lots of transitions where I did need code in the constructor or had too much code and did not want to compromise run-time code readability w/ design-time checks was a put a very big try { } catch in the constructor or event being called... in the catch, I check if I am in design time and just not bubble ( re-throw ) the exception .... not ideal but it does the trick.. e.g.

try
            {
/// Lots of code would go here... as long as it gets caught below Expression will be fine..
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
// I like to log them so that I can clean up once a week..
// This will no longer be necessary soon... Blend will start letting you see the stack traces in the next public build
// it also re-throws if this is run-time
              ExpressionWorkAround.DesignTimeHelper.LogException(ex);
            }

"... the explanation is fine, but I can't even open my project in Blend... I don't think it is getting far enough to run any code.. " ...
Almost every time I think this, I look and it is getting far enough, here is what happens: Blend opens the solution and then it starts opening the windows I had opened last time in the designer, and crashes while executing my code.. Here are a few tips on opening projects:

You can pass your full project path to blend from command-line ... when you do this, blend simply opens the project/solution.. It does not automatically open any of your Windows (or scenes) in the designer ... you will just need to double click in the window/control and it will then open it in the designer [possibly reproducing the crash] ...

c:\Program Files\Microsoft Expression\Blend Beta 1\Blend.exe "c:\mypath\myproj.csproj"
If you open blend from command line, you can pass the /exceptionlog parameter and if it crashes, it will show you the exception's call stack ... so you know where to look. This is of course useful even if your project is not crashing when opening.. it will log the exception when ever it happens..

c:\Program Files\Microsoft Expression\Blend Beta 1\Blend.exe /logException
Then you open your project and run as usual ...

"OK., I am getting it .. any more tips?"
Yes, but getting late and I am going to bed :( so here is the last one.. as mentioned Blend is a WPF app and it loads your code in it.. so if you are getting design time errors and want to troubleshoot you can open good old Visual Studio, open your project in both VS and blend, and from VS attach to blend and debug, stepping through it, etc... pretty useful for complex stuff ..

Open your project in Blend
Open your project in VS ..
From VS attach to Expression Blend ... (Attach Process, proc name is blend.exe ) ...
[Optional] In VS, tell it to break on any thrown Exceptions..

via the Menus: Debug -> Exceptions
Check the "thrown" box i nthe Common Language Runtine exceptions

[Optional] if don't want to stop at all exceptions, then put a breakpoint in your code..
Now, in Blend close & open the scene (window, user control) you want to debug.
If you are not getting it to hit your breakpoint, some times I have to do a Rebuild all in blend... before it catches on ..

One last remark...
if you are a designer, or new to Blend and reading this, don't freak yet... for designers, most of this stuff above happens when devs start putting code in places they might not need to so you are likely not to run into it... for new projects also, it might not be an issue.. it is those large projects that have 10s of thousands of lines of code in hand-coded XAML and or C# code... Also, note that a lot of the troubleshooting tips above get much easier in later versions of Blend (I think beta2)... I mostly wanted you to get the behavior and how blend loads your code.. so you understand what up...

I will try to come back w/ a blend tips & tricks ... In the mean time, there is a small project with some sample code to illustrate points above here.. Do a search for //TODO: interesting comments .... you can check them out, run the code, etc... if you run it simultaneously w/ dbgview, you should be able to see the Debug.WriteLine ()s that tell you a little of what's going on ...

Good luck ...

* [disclaimer, I should credit some one for the tip on using IsInDesignMode dep property with out a dep object, but can't recall who it was that shared this.. my guess would have been Unni or John Gossman. Sorry! Do check their blogs though :)