Data-Bound Properties in Xeto Designer Design Mode/Preview

[RotsiserMho]

Is it possible to preview data-bound controls with dummy data in the designer in Visual Studio for Mac? With WPF and Visual Studio for Windows I've used MVVM Light and ViewModelBase.IsInDesignModeStatic to set up dummy values for data-bound properties on my ViewModels that show up in the Visual Studio designer (and Blend). Is something similar possible with Eto? If not, what is the recommended way to preview data-bound UI to get a feel for layout, size, etc.

Thanks!

[cwensley]

@RotsiserMho at this time it is not built-in, though you could possibly create an instance of your dummy view model via something like:

DataContext="{local:MyViewModel IsInDesignMode=True}"

public class MyViewModel
{
  public bool IsInDesignMode { get; set; }
  }
}

This would only work on VS 2017 for Windows, however as the VS for Mac addin cannot currently instantiate classes in the local project.

Hope this helps!

[RotsiserMho]

Ah, got it. What's preventing the Mac addin from doing this? Has it simply not been implemented or does Visual Studio for Mac not support that kind of thing?

Thanks!

[cwensley]

It doesn't work because Gtk# (in use by VS for Mac) doesn't support creating controls in an AppDomain, so each time you change your code it would have to load the changed assemblies into the main AppDomain, which would bloat VS for Mac's memory usage quite quickly.. Not sure what to do to get around that.. possibly spawn a separate (hidden) process, render the output, and capture it as an image perhaps..