Blend 3 - Keyboard Shortcut to switch between design and xaml views?

Question

As I'm not more of a developer than a designer I like to hand code my xaml rather than using draggy-droppy stuff.

Since silverlight 3 - the design preview in VS2008 has disappeared. It wasn't that great but at least I got a visual representation of my markup without having to run the application.

So I installed Blend 3 and I'd still like to hand code my xaml.

Does anyone know a keyboard shortcut to switch between design view and xaml view - I've tried editing the xaml in VS then tabbing over to blend but theres a small delay that can be annoying when I just want a quick preview.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Are you talking about while in Blend? In which case it's F11 to toggle view.

If your talking about toggling between VS and Blend then I don't think it can be done, but you could try adding a Keyboard Shortcut in Tools->Options->Keyboard (not tried it and don't know if it would be successful).

HTH

Mark

Answer 2

In Blend you can use F11 to toggle between the three states: - Design View - Xaml View - Split View

It seems to me that what would help you the most is to change your default view: -> Tools -> Options -> Documents -> Change the Default Document View to either Xaml or Split View

And there is a way to toggle between VS and Blend: I do this all the time with Alt-Tab. I'd be cautious though: you should save the solution before switching to keep the two apps in synch.

Answer 3

Hey Buddy

For doing the thing you want please test the following solution:

1) Navigate to Tools menu of the visual studio 2) Click the Options menu item 3) From left pane choose the Environment and then Keyboard 4) From right pane choose the Visual C# 2005 combobox item

Now you can easily switch between xaml and the desing view by pressing Shift+F7