Hide WPF elements in Visual Studio designer

Question

I have a WPF form which basically looks like this:

  
    
      [content shown during normal operation]
             


        

Answer 1

Since there is no built-in way to do this, I decided to implement a solution myself, which was surprisingly easy to do using attached properties:

Public Class DesignModeTool
    Public Shared ReadOnly IsHiddenProperty As DependencyProperty = DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached( _
        "IsHidden", GetType(Boolean), GetType(DesignModeTool), _
        New FrameworkPropertyMetadata(False, New PropertyChangedCallback(AddressOf OnIsHiddenChanged)))

    Public Shared Sub SetIsHidden(ByVal element As UIElement, ByVal value As Boolean)
        element.SetValue(IsHiddenProperty, value)
    End Sub

    Public Shared Function GetIsHidden(ByVal element As UIElement) As Boolean
        Return DirectCast(element.GetValue(IsHiddenProperty), Boolean)
    End Function

    Private Shared Sub OnIsHiddenChanged(ByVal d As DependencyObject, ByVal e As DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs)
        If System.ComponentModel.DesignerProperties.GetIsInDesignMode(d) AndAlso True.Equals(e.NewValue) Then
            With DirectCast(d, FrameworkElement)
                .Width = 0
                .Height = 0
            End With
        End If
    End Sub
End Class

After declaring a namespace, the feature can be used like this:

[stuff I don't want to be shown in the designer]