Cannot use Blend to edit Windows App Projects

Question

Nearly every time I try to open my Windows Store project in Blend (by going to View -> Open in Blend… from Visual Studio 2012), it complains about much of my code, with errors such as:

Page is not supported in a Windows App project

ResourceDictionary is not supported in a Windows App project

Style is not supported in a Windows App project

Grid is not supported in a Windows App project

Nearly every element in my code is complained about by Blend, yet the code runs and is not complained about by Visual Studio 2012. It's almost as if Blend had never seen XAML before! What is the problem here, and how can I fix it?

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Nathan Sokalski [e-mail] http://www.nathansokalski.com/

Answer 1

It sounds like there's a problem with the Blend install. Can you repair it (in the Program and Features control panel select Visual Studio, push Change, and you should be offered a chance to repair it)?

Does this occur with any project, or just the one? Can you create an open a new Windows Store app project in Blend?

--Rob

Answer 2

Hi Nathan,

Have you resolved the problem?

Best regards,

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Min Zhu
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us
Develop and promote your apps in Windows Store
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.

Answer 3

I can't say for sure, since Blend has been inconsistent for me as far as working or not, but it worked the most recent time, so I'll call it resolved for now.

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Nathan Sokalski [e-mail] http://www.nathansokalski.com/

Answer 4

Installing the latest Update 3 RC did the trick for me:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39067

Answer 5

Just curious why you marked this reply as an answer.

I just spent the last 24 hours installing, repairing, and installing Update 3 and now Update 4.

To reproduce the problem, if you have a Windows Universal Store App targeting Windows 8.1/Windows Phone 8.1 and right click on a page in Visual Studio 2013, and select "Open in Blend", you get this behavior. It may depend on NuGet packages being installed (such as SQLite), but there is a problem as stated in the last of this message.

The reason that the XAML parser is having issues is that when Blend is opening the page and project, it is failing to open the entire SOLUTION, which may have NuGet packages to load.

I was able to workaround this issue by opening up the SOLUTION in Blend, allowing it to load all of the required dependencies.

When can we have a fix for the "Open in Blend" to open the solution and not just the project?

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Thomas Mullen