Visual Studio: Open in Full XAML View by Default

By: Brian Lagunas Category:UncategorizedTag: Silverlight, Visual Studio, Visual Studio, WPF, xaml:

So I am using Visual Studio 2008 for developing WPF and Silverlight applications. The one thing that really annoys me is when I open a .XAML file and then Visual Studio automatically opens the file in split view mode. I am sure you are well aware of how VS 2008 support for the preview pane blows. So now I have to sit and wait for VS to render my view in the preview pane, and sometimes it can take a while, if it doesn?t just completely crash. Sometimes I take the extra time to go grab a snack and beverage of my choice.

So here is a hidden performance increasing jewel you might find useful. We can set the default open mode to be in full XAML view.

First thing you need to do is in Visual Studio go to your Tools ==> Options ==> Text Editor ==> XAML ==> Miscellaneous. There you will see an option for ?Always open documents in full XAML view?. Check that box.

Now every time you open a XAML file it will open in full XAML view and give you one less thing to gripe about.

3 thoughts on “Visual Studio: Open in Full XAML View by Default”

For people that don’t use the VS2008 designer, I have also posted solution that works a lot faster than the XAML editor and also is a lot more stable.

Check it out here: http://byteflux.me/index.php/2009/10/16/getting-rid-of-the-annoying-visual-studio-xaml-editor-bugs/

@Sebastian Negomireanu

That’s a great tip as well, but I do like the preview pane (a little bit) and your tip would completely get rid of it. I just don’t like it when my view first starts up, but still need accesss to it when I do want to see it. Thanks for the alternative.