WPF Designer “Could not create an instance of type”

Question

In my UI XAML I\'m essentially inheriting from a class \"BaseView\" that contains functionality common to several forms, however this is preventing the designer from display

Answer 1

In WinForms, it's possible to use the designer with abstract controls if you use a custom TypeDescriptionProvider to inform the designer of a concrete implementation:

I'm using the solution in this answer to another question, which links this article. The article recommends using a custom TypeDescriptionProvider and concrete implementation of the abstract class. The designer will ask the custom provider which types to use, and your code can return the concrete class so that the designer is happy while you have complete control over how the abstract class appears as a concrete class.