Visual Designer

The designer turns XAML AST nodes into a live Avalonia control tree, maps visuals back to source nodes, and keeps the editing surface synchronized with document state.

Designer surfaces

XamlVisualEditor.Designer.Core defines design items, selections, hit testing, and designer host abstractions.
XamlVisualEditor.Designer.Rendering instantiates live Avalonia controls from AST nodes and maintains visual-to-node mapping.
XamlVisualEditor.Designer.Adorners renders selection rectangles, resize handles, grids, rulers, snap lines, and margin/padding guides.
XamlVisualEditor.Designer.DragDrop handles toolbox insertion, surface rearrangement, and tree reorder workflows.

Supporting panels

Toolbox contributes insert commands.
Property Editor shows categorized or searchable selected-node properties.
Tree Inspector exposes visual and logical tree views.
Animation Editor handles timeline/keyframe editing.

Implementation notes

Designer logic belongs in services and ViewModels. Views render bound state and route input through Avalonia bindings and behaviors. Keep shell-specific wiring in host adapters and keep reusable designer rules in domain/services projects.