Using the Visual Studio XML Editor on RDL files

Question

When using Visual Studio to edit Reporting Services *.rdl files, the default designer used is from the "Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Designers" installed product.

When viewing the RDL code, this code is displayed as plain text and I want to take advantage of the XML Editor in visual studio. Linking the *.rdl extension to the XML editor in Tools>Options>Text Editor>File Extension has the nasty side effect that while the rdl is now shown in the XML editor, the original report designer completely disappears.

Is there some other way to do this?

thanks

Answer 1

You should be able to view and modify the XML by doing a view source on the RDL file. That way you'll still be able to use the designer when needed.

Answer 2

For any file you can click the arrow on the size of the open button in the open file dialog and select open with... From there you can select the XML editor. There are some other useful open with items in there as well.

Answer 3

It would seem that the Report Designer for Visual Studio 2005 did not provide XML Editor support when you click "View Source"; where the 2008 version does. While "solved", this is just a little inconvenient when you still need to develop RDL in 2005 compatibility mode.