I'm a developer with experience in both Desktop (.NET) and Web development. I'm wondering if there is an tool or library which allows inspecting a desktop application and make changes to it in runtime and allows us to identify/copy the changes to the source code, similar to the browser inspect tools.

Typically when I'm in a meeting with any client for a web development project, I tend to use browser inspect tools or stylus, to quickly make some minor CSS tweaks to the UI (with couple of variations) and get their feedback.

But with a desktop application(WPF in my case) this is not possible as far as I know. So I'm looking for a way to achieve this if its possible.

Note: I came across below applications, but they don't provide the solution to my question:

1. Microsoft Application Inspector
2. Accessibility tools - Inspect

CodePudding user response：

Visual Studio supports XAML Reload and Element Inspection/Editing with WPF-Desktop Application. Read this article for further information.

CodePudding user response：

You can edit the XAML files while the program is running in the debugger. Unfortunately, only the source mode is available at runtime, not the designer. But to adjust small things in the layout (such as margins), that works fine. The changes take effect immediately.