Xamarin Android Designer showing blank page

Question

Recently I decided to try using Xamarin for developing simple Android applications.

However, I encountered a problem that the Android Designer for layouts either does not work (in latest stable VS 2017) or shows just a blank page (in latest VS 2017 Preview).

Are there any additional steps to set it up or how can I fix this?

Answer 1

As it happens, Xamarin Designer will not work properly (like the behavior described in my question) if you do not have the correct folder structure. Ie the layout documents must be in the Resources/layout folder, otherwise the Designer will fail.

I already reported this to VS Community and they said that they will have a look at this issue. Hope they will fix it soon.