Custom BasePage causing design view to break - visual-studio-2010

Question

I was getting fed up with typing this.NavigationService.Navigate(new Uri(page.xaml, UriKind.Relative));, every time I need to navigate to a different page in my app.
So I've created a custom BasePage with a virtual to help with Navigating around my app.
The problem I have is in VS2010, if I have the source and design view open, the design just shows the windows phone background and I get some blue wiggly lines right from the top to the bottom of my xaml and messages along the lines of x isn't supported. This happens on any page that I have set up to Inherit from my custom BasePage.
However, if I run the application on my Windows Phone or in the Emmulator it will work.
Does anyone have any suggestions of what I could try to keep my Design view working whilst apply my custom base, or if I have missed something off?
A slightly cut down version of my BasePage is:
public class BasePage : PhoneApplicationPage
{
public virtual void NavigateTo(string pageName, params Tuple<string,string>[] queryString)
{
// Code to perform this.NavigationService.Navigate
}
}
EDIT 2011-08-16
Part of this base page overrides the PhoneApplicationPage's OnNavigatedTo method, in which I perform a security check to see if:
security has been enabled
User is logged in
If the security is enabled but the user is not logged in, they are immediately redirected to a Login Page.
I found this useful as I don't then have to add any code to existing or new pages to handle this, so long as they derive from the BasePage.

Answer 1

I wouldn't recommend using a BasePage for this. Instead, simply add your NavigateTo method in the App.xaml.cs file, as a static method.
public static void NavigateTo(string pageName, params Tuple<string,string>[] queryString)
{
// Code to perform this.NavigationService.Navigate
}
Also, remember to wrap the call to .Navigate in Dispatcher.BeginInvoke so all transition effects are properly executed.
And as a bonus tip: Don't use the designer in Visual Studio. Instead, set the 'default editor' for XAML files to be the "Source Code" editor, so the designer is never opened. This makes Visual Studio much more stable.
If you want a designer, you should get Microsoft Expression (Blend)