Question

I have the following XAML below for the main window in my WPF application, I am trying to set the design time d:DataContext below, which I can successfully do for all my various UserControls, but it gives me this error when I try to do it on the window…

Error 1 The property 'DataContext' must be in the default namespace or in the element namespace 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation'. Line 8 Position 9. C:\dev\bplus\PMT\src\UI\MainWindow.xaml 8 9 UI

<Window x:Class="BenchmarkPlus.PMT.UI.MainWindow"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
    xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
    xmlns:UI="clr-namespace:BenchmarkPlus.PMT.UI"
    xmlns:Controls="clr-namespace:BenchmarkPlus.PMT.UI.Controls"
    d:DataContext="{d:DesignInstance Type=UI:MainViewModel, IsDesignTimeCreatable=True}"
    Title="MainWindow" Height="1000" Width="1600" Background="#FF7A7C82">

    <Grid>
        <!-- Content Here -->
    </grid>

</Window>

Answer 1

I needed to add the mc:Ignorable="d" attribute to the Window tag. Essentially I learned something new. The d: namespace prefix that Expression Blend/Visual Studio designer acknowledges is actually ignored/”commented out” by the real compiler/xaml parser!

<Window 
...
    xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
    mc:Ignorable="d"
    xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
...
/>

The following was taken from

Nathan, Adam (2010-06-04). WPF 4 Unleashed (Kindle Locations 1799-1811). Sams. Kindle Edition.

Markup Compatibility

The markup compatibility XML namespace (http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006, typically used with an mc prefix) contains an Ignorable attribute that instructs XAML processors to ignore all elements/attributes in specified namespaces if they can’t be resolved to their .NET types/members. (The namespace also has a ProcessContent attribute that overrides Ignorable for specific types inside the ignored namespaces.)

Expression Blend takes advantage of this feature to do things like add design-time properties to XAML content that can be ignored at runtime.

mc:Ignorable can be given a space-delimited list of namespaces, and mc:ProcessContent can be given a space-delimited list of elements. When XamlXmlReader encounters ignorable content that can’t be resolved, it doesn’t report any nodes for it. If the ignorable content can be resolved, it will be reported normally. So consumers don’t need to do anything special to handle markup compatibility correctly.