A system and/or methodology to publish and share global objects in a visual designer is provided. A global object is an object that is available anywhere in the development project, rather than being local to a class or user interface element. Aspects of the invention are directed to a mechanism where global objects can be published, queried and/or used by individual visual designers. Additionally, aspects are directed to systems and/or methodologies where changes to those global objects can be made in such a way that they can be automatically updated in the designer. An alternate aspect of this mechanism can integrate with visual designers such that the designer itself does not need to be modified to accommodate the presence of a global object.