Resharper is an amazing tool for any .Net developers. The latest version 6.1 has been released just a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to share with you a brief overview of the new workflow available in the XAML world !

Visual Studio 2010 introduced 2 new design time properties: d:DesignInstance and d:DesignData. Those properties can be used in order to specify a design time DataContext in order to have more help during the creation of a binding.

For example, when you create a binding using the Property dialog of VS2010 you can browse your DataContext to select the right property (image from this blog post from Karl Shifflet):

Resharper 6.1 is now able to use those metadata in order to improve the experience you have while typing XAML (which I personally do a LOT!). Here is how it works:

you create a new ViewModel with a simple property (this property has just get/set because we don’t need much more in the context of this post…)

you setup a binding in your view

At this point the ReSharper magic comes into play…

ReSharper warns you the DataContext is unknown

Offer the ability to fix this

Note that like in C#, you can very easily resolve namespace issues

Then notice that the warning is gone (the Title property is no longer underlined)

You can now add a new binding

You can then ask ReSharper to create the property in your ViewModel

Choosing the first option will get you to the ViewModel definition

Now that I’ve upgraded my installation to version 6.1, I think this is a must have !

That’s all for today ! Hope it helps 🙂