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

I ran into a similar problem recently.

I am using a Rectangle to obscure the main window during a modal dialog's execution. I have the Visibility data bound, but the Rectangle made the designer unusable. I mad the Z index a one time data bind, and a fallback value was lower than the window I wanted to obscure. When the application starts up, the Rectangle's Z index is bound to a higher value than the window.