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 am on the other side... hate VS 2012 for hiding hidden WPF controls in designer. I need to see them so i have modified gregsdennis code to:

public class DesignModeTool
{
    public static readonly DependencyProperty IsHiddenProperty = DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("IsHidden",   typeof(bool),  typeof(DesignModeTool),   new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(false, new PropertyChangedCallback(OnIsHiddenChanged)));

    public static void SetIsHidden(FrameworkElement element, bool value)
    {
        element.SetValue(IsHiddenProperty, value);
    }

    public static bool GetIsHidden(FrameworkElement element)
    {
        return (bool)element.GetValue(IsHiddenProperty);
    }

    private static void OnIsHiddenChanged(DependencyObject d,
                                          DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        if (!DesignerProperties.GetIsInDesignMode(d)) return;
        var element = (FrameworkElement)d;
        element.Visibility=Visibility.Visible;

    }
}

wpfClasses2:DesignModeTool.IsHidden="False" will show the control in designer mode.