Right,

I've got a main wpf window:

<Window x:Class="NorthwindInterface.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:ViewModels="clr-namespace:NorthwindInterface.ViewModels" Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="525">
    <Window.DataContext>
        <ViewModels:MainViewModel />
    </Window.DataContext>
    <ListView ItemsSource="{Binding Path=Customers}">

    </ListView>
</Window>

And the MainViewModel is this:

class MainViewModel : INotifyPropertyChanged { public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged = delegate { };

    public MainViewModel()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("test");
        using (NorthwindEntities northwindEntities = new NorthwindEntities())
        {
            this.Customers = (from c in northwindEntities.Customers
                              select c).ToList();
        }
    }

    public List<Customer> Customers { get;private  set; }

Now the problem is that in designermode I can't see my MainViewModel, it highlights it saying that it can't create an instance of the MainViewModel. It is connecting to a database. That is why (when I comment the code the problem is solved).

But I don't want that. Any solutions on best practices around this?