I have custom classes that I currently instantiate within App.xaml as resources. I want to move these custom objects into a Merged ResourceDictionary, where they are used within styles, and keep them close to where they are used. Here's an example of what I want, arbitrarily using fake converter objects, but they could be any custom object...

App.xaml (namespace declarations ommitted):

<Application.Resources>
<ResourceDictionary>
    <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
        <ResourceDictionary Source="Merged.xaml" />
    </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>
    <Style x:Key="SomeStyle" TargetType="SomeControl">
        ...
    </Style>
    ...

</ResourceDictionary>

And then in Merged.xaml (namespace declarations omitted):

<ResourceDictionary>
    <cvt:VisibilityToBoolConverter x:Key="BoolToVisibility" Inverted="True"/>
    <cvt:VisibilityToBoolConverter x:Key="NotBoolToVisibility" Inverted="True" Not="True"/>

    <Style x:Key="SomethingThatUsesVisibilityToBoolConvertersStyle" TargetType="SomeOtherControl">
        ....
    </Style>
</ResourceDictionary>

The issue I'm seeing is this: when I create the BoolToVisibility and NotBoolToVisibility objects (as well instantiating other objects that are instances of custom classes I have created) just as part Application.Resources, they are created and all the references work as expected; however, when I move these into a Merged Resource Dictionary (as I have in the sample above), I get a malformed Application exception when the Silverlight application loads.

I belive this to be an issue with how objects are instantiated differently in Merged Resource Dictionaries (I belive it is more of a lazy-load approach), but I would expect it to work nonetheless.

I am very much able to add Style objects, DataTemplates, ControlTemplates, and the like. But when I want to create instances of custom classes that are named or keyed using Xaml, it works great inside of App.xaml's Application.Resources directly and Application.Resources/ResourceDictionary as well. As soon as they are moved into a merged dictionary, it throws the exception. Is this by design? Any other ideas that work? Thanks in advance...