GUI editor not WYSIWYG

[Pierre]

I was asked to try Telerik for our upcoming project.  I downloaded the trial version last friday and played with it yesterday.  The more stuff I added in the XAML, the less WISYWIG was the view in the XAML editor.

I was also getting the IntelliSense issue (see http://www.telerik.com/forums/vs-2015-xaml-intellisense-not-working) so I installed the HotFix.  Now, my rendered XAML in the editor is giving a "Sequence contains more than one element" with a big stack trace.  Still, the test application runs fine.  The problematic XAML is a chart inside the pane of a Split Container:

 

<telerik:RadPaneGroup>
   <telerik:RadPane Header="Results" ContextMenuTemplate="{x:Null}" CanUserClose="False" CanFloat="False">
       <telerik:RadCartesianChart>
           <telerik:RadCartesianChart.HorizontalAxis>
               <telerik:CategoricalAxis />
           </telerik:RadCartesianChart.HorizontalAxis>
           <telerik:RadCartesianChart.VerticalAxis>
               <telerik:LinearAxis />
           </telerik:RadCartesianChart.VerticalAxis>
           <telerik:RadCartesianChart.Series>
               <telerik:BarSeries>
                   <telerik:BarSeries.DataPoints>
                       <telerik:CategoricalDataPoint Category="Apples" Value="20"/>
                       <telerik:CategoricalDataPoint Category="Bananas" Value="28"/>
                       <telerik:CategoricalDataPoint Category="Oranges" Value="17"/>
                       <telerik:CategoricalDataPoint Category="Strawberries" Value="30"/>
                   </telerik:BarSeries.DataPoints>
               </telerik:BarSeries>
           </telerik:RadCartesianChart.Series>
       </telerik:RadCartesianChart>
   </telerik:RadPane>
</telerik:RadPaneGroup>

If I remove the "RadCartesianChart" section, the exception goes away.  The rendered preview still makes no sense though.

It's very hard to create a XAML view if the editor doesn't render the view correctly.

[Pierre]

I just got the same just with 

<telerik:RadPanelBarItem Header="Analysis parameters">
    <UniformGrid Columns="2">
        <TextBlock Text="Threshold" />
        <telerik:RadSlider Minimum="0" Maximum="255" />
    </UniformGrid>
</telerik:RadPanelBarItem>

The moment I added the RadSlider, a "System.NullReferenceException"/"Object reference not set to an instance of an object." exception filled my designer preview.  The application compiles and runs fine but I can no longer preview my XAML changes for this view.

[Pierre]

So it seems the issue is for VS2015 only.  I've tried using VS2013 and the GUI was properly rendered

[Petar Mladenov]

Hello Pierre,

We managed to reproduce this exception with the code snippet you provided and no-xaml telerik binaries.
It's strange that changing the platform target combined with unload / reload of the project fixes the exception in the designer. After such change + unload / reload every mode AnyCPU / x64/ x86 resulted in no exception. Most probably this is a VS studio / .Net Framework issue since we have also received reports for various exceptions in the VS 2015 designer that are not present in earlier versions.

Please also note that MS just Released RC of .Net 4.6.1. containing many XAML - related  fixes. We hope some of the designer issues to be resolved in this version.

Is it possible for you to test it on your side as well ?

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2015/10/29/announcing-net-framework-4-6-1-rc.aspx 

Regards,
Petar Mladenov
Telerik

[Pierre]

Petar,

Unfortunately, it seems 4.6.1 RC hasn't changed anything.  I still get odd rendering and designer exceptions under VS2015 in x64 although it compiles and runs fine.

At least, it's better in x86 so I design in x86 and then compile in x64.

 

[Petar Mladenov]

Hi Pierre,

We are sorry to hear the designer issues are still reproducible. We will continue our research on the various design time issues with VS 2015 and will contact you if we find useful information.

Regards,
Petar Mladenov
Telerik