Design view disabled in Blend + Sketchflow 2012

Question

I have a project that was created in Blend + Sketchflow preview for Visual Studio 2012. It is a simple project as I am learning C# and WPF for the first time. I have two windows. A simple start screen with a button that shows the other screen. The other screen has 4 buttons which change colors during a random order animation sequence.

My problem is that the design view became disabled. I can not open any XAML in design view anymore or edit any Storyboards etc. The only thing different I could think of is that I added a class file in Visual Studio 2012. After the project refreshed the design view went away and all I can see is the xml version of it.

If anyone can show me the solution I would appreciate it as I have searched google and stackoverflow and no answers have been found. I am new to both the language and VS/Blend so this may be a simple fix, I have no idea. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Make sure your project type is not set to 'console' as Blend will refuse to show design view for this type. If the project type is 'window', Blend will display design view just fine.

Answer 2

Also, Blend for VS2013 will not open a solution file if the target .NET Framework version is set to 4.5.2. A reset of the 'Target Framework' to 4.5.1 (or earlier) and Blend works fine.

Answer 3

I managed to solve this thanks to Surfbutler. My problem was I temporarily switched the project (output) type to console in Visual Studio 2012. When I switched it back to Window the design view started working properly again in Blend.