Cider, But You Can't

Well, to compensate for the long period before the prior post, I am now griping about the WPF designer. The documentation says:

How To: Add Controls to a WPF Window

• In the WPF Designer, drag a control from the Toolbox to the design surface.
  
  -or-


• In the Toolbox, double-click the desired control.

So I tried it. It does not work. All actions are ignored. When dragging, you get the international "Not allowed here" sign as the cursor moves over the destination form.

Now, as I have probably said countless times already on this blog, it is undoubtedly possible to do what the documentation says you can do. Only why can't I do it? Because the X bit has not been set, because the Draggable check box has not been checked, because I am using a type-A project in a type-B solution on a type-C operating system, and, heck, everybody knows you can't do that. There's no reason for an error message, because everybody knows you can't do that.

The problem is, I don't know that. Whatever it is. Whatever it is, no matter how thoroughly Microsoft has documented it, I can't find the documentation if all I see is a slashed circle. In Windows Forms I never, ever, tried to drag a control onto a form and saw nothing but a slashed circle with no hint, no inkling, no slightest clue, as to what the problem was. I am not comparing this to a Linux product or an IBM product or an HP product or a Sun Microsystems product. I am comparing this to a Microsoft product: Windows Forms. Why do we regress? Why is the new, improved, WPF environment so much worse than before? This gives a whole new meaning to the word improved. Microsoft has now defined the term "improved" as "worse."