VS.NET: Best practices for visually designing DataList controls that will have programmatically load

[Guest]

I am wondering the best and easiest ways to use the VS.NETvisual designer
with data controls that will will be loaded programmatically. For example, I
have two datalist controls, one of which I'm populating from a ArrayList
based off of the filesystem, and one which uses a dynamically built
XmlDataSource.

It is occassionally useful to see the semi-rendered view in the VS.NET
designer.

The hack I'm doing for now is to have a "junk" XML file based off the the
schema that will eventually be dynamically generated, specify that XML file
in the property field for the XmlDataSource in the VS.NET designer to get
the visual display for the control, and remove that reference before
deploying.

What +doesn't+ work is to leave that reference to the junk XML/same schema
in place in the visual designer, and then attempt to programmatically
replace or overwrite the junk value with the programmatically generated
information. I'm puzzled why not.

Is there a better way to handle this then I am managing now?

Thanks,
-KF