>>> editor that works well for most stuff.
>
>Wow, you're the first person I've heard that from.
>
>Even hard core WPF guys who love writing XAML code hate the VS editor because it's a funky hybrid that does neither XML editing nor visual editing easy.

Maybe I am weird. I also spend most of my time in source view when I do HTML. Designers too frequently don't give me what I want, and I can often type the code faster than I can find it in the properties box. The properties box is nice for learning and to help find stuff, when you don't know what you want. But with intelisence if I know what I want the code editor is much faster.

Part of it may also be that I'm familiar with VS and I'm not familiar with Blend, maybe as I learn Blend more I will use it more.

>There's not even a real clean way to just get a plain XAML view (without the designer which keeps crashing because it can't render the XAML). You can open as XML but then there's no Intellisense.

Select SwapPanes, then ColapsePanes in the IDE. wala XAML only view with intelisence. <g>

I use that a lot.

>The VS story for XAML is dismal and a disgrace for Microsoft IMHO given that WPF has been out for almost a year and a half now and missed the boat on a new release of VS.NET that just shipped. And from what Microsoft hints it's not going to get any better. MS suggestion is to use Blend if you want better support which is OK, but the integration is still pretty bad between VS and Blend.
>
>+++ Rick ---

Ya they could do better, especially on the integration between Blend and VS2008, that's also part of why I don't use Blend much.