Speeding up XAML editing in VS2008

Question

When editing XAML in VS2008 SP1, the editor is very slow. The devenv process seems to be at 40% of the CPU (Im's machine currently only uses a dual core, so this almost maximizes one core) most of the time. When I switch to another XAML file, it grows a little. I also have ReSharper installed, but I think Id is more likely to put up with slowness than it removes :)

Any suggestions on how I can speed things up a bit?

Edited to add: I am only using the Xaml view, which accelerated it from what I remember, but it was still sluggish. In addition, Xaml files are not massive - only from 100 to 200 lines.

Answer 1

The slowdown seems to be related to ReSharper. From a bit more Googling, I found that pressing Ctrl + 8 will disable ReSharper for the current file (Ctrl + 8 again to enable it again). If I do this for slow Xaml files, my problems go away pretty much (and I don't mind if I don't have ReSharper for Xaml)

Update. Version 4.1 of ReSharper fixed a performance issue, so I no longer need to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + 8.

Answer 2

You can speed it up just by looking at the XML view. Tools / Options / Text Editor / XAML / Always open documents in full XAML view (check this box).

Answer 3

I found that this fix resolved the serious delay and stutter problem that I had.

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=10826

Before just scrolling or editing a tag in my xaml, you will pause 5-10 seconds in VS2008. This fix seemed to fix most of them; not only pauses after saving and loading xaml files.

Answer 4

Perhaps you can edit the XAML file outside of Visual Studio. Use tools such as:

• XamlPadX 4
• Kaxaml