I am new to android.
As I know, an android app used xml to construct the gui.
Is there a tool to create the gui xml from a visual drag & drop editor?
Have a go with Google App Inventor.
App Inventor only output .apk file. Is there a way to output the XML layout?
DroidDraw you give some help. But not quite easy to use. It can only produce some basic structure.
Well, there's the gui builder in eclipse, which is useful in a few cases. Although, your better of just making the XML yourself, and doing the fine tweaking in the gui editor.
There is droid draw, but from my experience with relative layouts it fails to properly build the xml.
There is also app inventor, but I haven't tried it though so I don't know how well it works.
If your looking for something that is as nice as the iPhone's gui builder, from my experience anyway, your out of luck. Roll up your sleeves and start hacking out xml. (Or java code if you want to write 10x as much). Sorry to have to tell you that.
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I wanted to create my own tool for android where i will change xml and that should reflect android ui side by side likewise what android studio and eclipse does.
Can someone tell me what android studio and eclipse uses to render ui from xml as shown in screenshot.
First off: it is not really clear what you want to achieve so I think I should ask some questions first.
- Do you want to create an add-on for an existing IDE?
- Do you want to create an Android Application?
- Do you want to create an IDE similar to Android Studio/ Eclipse?
Answer: If you want to create your own IDE then you need to implement the parsers and preview using 2D drawing. The tools AndroidStudio or Eclipse use to display the XML Views are part of the IDE. As far as I know there is no tool that will display your XML preview as they do. Follow the next instructions in order to implement that part.
But regardless of the answer to any of the questions above, here are some directions.
Since you need to know what kind of content you're using, you should start with an xml parser. How to do that can be found here.
Next step would be to actually draw the Views hierarchy somewhere. For that you need a basic 2D drawing knowledge, and you can start here
Access the resources for different platform and draw them to your window, using processed xml information and Android specific images. You can access the Android specific resources (images) for different platform, through the AOSP here
I hope i managed to point out some directions.
This is a complex thing to do:
One and only solution , Making the compiler for XML, If there are openSource XML parser for java Use them.
If there are not any I am afraid you have to make your own.
unity can do it for you its funny but you can do it with unity you can make android native views like button and ... in as objects in unity and load xml for adding views in right place,its so hard but possible and intresting
It seems to difficult to creating UI for android application using XML layout (:at least for me).is there any plug-ins or any other method by which I can create UI for Android application ??
It is difficult at first but once you're used to it it is second nature. If you intend to take up Android development seriously, XML UIs is an essential skill and you should learn it well.
That said, the Eclipse setup for Android has a GUI layout maker as well, and there is DroidDraw as well.
You can also recreate about 95% of XML layouts using Java code if it suits you better.
Check out http://developer.android.com/tools/help/adt.html which has GUI design tools. It's pretty easy, you can just drag and drop the widgets you like.
I was using DroidDraw, working through the tutorials. Looking at the resulting XML and the Java code to tie them together, I was thinking that I could build a program to automate that process, so I started noodling something together. But before I go off and totally remake the wheel, I was wondering if something like this hasn't already been made before?
I'm thinking of something that takes the layout XML from DroidDraw, and outputs a Java application that works, and is ready for you to add your own code.
It seems pretty basic, has it been done and I've just not spotted it? I've tried Google searches, but I don't see anything similar.
The built-in UI editor that comes with Eclipse used to be pretty crappy - however, it's now getting better and better. Rev 11, which is coming out soon will a lot of new and useful features also.
Give it a try - I think you'll find this is the best tool.
The resulting XML file you can take from DroidDraw requires no Java code.. you simply setContentView(R.layout.name) and that's it!
Just use IntelliJ or Eclipse to set up a skeleton project for you, and import the XML you created via DroidDraw.
There is App Inventor. I have not tried it myself but it sounds pretty much like what you want.
As far as I know it is a very visual approach to develop an application.
We are beginning to learn Android, converting our iPhone apps over.
There is a rudimentary editor for layouts in Eclipse, but it's not very good. Is there a visual designer that would be on par with the iPhone "Interface Builder" ?
AFAIK there is no such builder yet for Android,
Check out droiddraw and try to make the most out from Eclipse builder, those are the best and only interface builders. Anyway once you get in, you won't spend to much time creating lots of interfaces, as you will reuse them or the inbuilt components like preferencescreen.
When developing and thinking about layouts, think them as they were like HTML layouts.
App Inventor looks interesting, but it's still in beta and you need to request access:
http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/
It seems to have a nice interface for building Android UI's and actually generates other code such as networking and database code.
I'm not looking for a mock up tool, I'm looking for a reasonable GUI design tool for the final product in the style of Apple's Interface Builder. Droid Draw is buggy, out of date and inaccurate in my experience. Using the Eclipse plug in to do a complex layout makes going to the dentist seem fun. I'd even settle for hand-coding CSS pixel coordinates over the current model. Is the solution found here: http://andrdev.blogspot.com/2010/01/gui-designer.html the best, or have one of you ninjas found something else? If there is an actively developed project that isn't ready for show yet, I'd like to know that as well.
I don't see why you'd want something like this (especially the tool you posted a link to). That would mean learning a whole new language just to use that tool. Why not learn the XML definitions directly? Yes, it's a relatively steep learning curve but once you're up to speed you'll see it's great. Also, doing XML by hand will allow you to optimize your layouts a lot (there are a few articles out there on how to do that).
As to the Eclipse plugin, I find it quite awesome, although I never use it directly. I don't add/remove/edit elements with it. I write my XML code and then test it with the plugin so I don't have to recompile the app > upload it on the emulator > run the app > go through all the activities to get to the one I'm editing right now, just to see that I need to add a little more padding.
Also, in general, it's best to use the tools you are given. Third party tools are very likely to become outdated, discontinued, deprecated, ...
In conclusion: do it the right way. Write your XML by hand. Use the Eclipse plugin as a convenience tool.