I just updated my Android SDK/etc (Eclipse IDE) and, while there seems to be some nice, new aspects/features of the Graphical Layout part for xml's, the previous ability of moving items using the Red Arrows up/down is missing and I'm not able to move items around (in or out of layouts).
Yes, I know I can (and guess I'll have to) move the actual xml code around but, I really like the ability to move items graphically.
Am I missing something?
Thanks
I don't think you are missing anything. Whoever wrote the new plugin is though, see:
Layout Outline in Eclipse lacks Up/Down Plus/Minus buttons
Related
After the 3.3 update, I've noticed that most of the views in my XML file has this weird highlight in the preview screen on the right and it very annoying and preventing me of know what my views really look like.
any idea how to remove it?
I guess just tap on the gray background and this removes all selections highlights.
I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing or not, but the scenario is this....
When I create multiple layout-* (i.e. layout, layout-ldpi, layout-xhpdi, etc) folders and place the AXML files in each of the folders.... double click to open them in the designer... it DOES change the "device" selection for the display correctly, BUT the actual visual display DOESN'T change.... making it VERY difficult to see how multiple screens are going to handle the layout files (i.e, no matter the selection I make on the layout nodes on the left).
I know in older Xamarin Studio versions it did update the layouts where I could make the necessary changes, but not any more.
Im not sure if it's some setting, or something I'm missing, but I need it to work. :)
If anyone can lead me in the correct direction to fix this it would be awesome!
I've recently switched from eclipse to IntelliJ IDEA for Android development. I'm not missing any features, beside the rather helpful designer preview in eclipse. I populate certain views in my activities at runtime, there are no texts defined in the corresponding XML files. In eclipse, it looks like this:
It fills the empty views with placeholder text which is nice to get a rough impression of the layout without having to start the app. But in IDEA, the designer looks like this:
The views are empty, and it's difficult to even see them without selecting them in the Component Tree. I haven't found anything in the options, is this missing from IDEA or did I miss an option?
It's not possible right now, but it would be nice to have, I've created a new feature request, please vote.
Working with Android for the first time, I've blocked out a layout using the relative layout and laid down some buttons and text widgets how I like them. However when I go back to rename the IDs the layout goes all crazy moving elements around and in general destroying the hours of work I spent laying them out.
Does anyone know how I can rename the widgets without Android destroying the positioning for widgets in the Relative Layout? Is this some "feature" of Android? I can't imagine why it would be hard for the UI builder to handle simple renaming of a widget ID without destroying the positioning information.. Do I have to use an external text editor and modify the XML files directly? Ughh I hope not.. I'm using Eclipse IDE.
You can use find and then replace all to change the names every place that they appear. Shouldn't take anywhere near an hour if you're dealing with a small layout.
In general the graphical UI creator that is currently included with the Android SDK is not so great for creating anything but very simple layouts. In my experiences (which were a long time ago, it may have gotten better since) it was terrible with RelativeLayouts.
If you have not modified your xml directly then it is time that you jump in and start learning to do it that way. You'll find that you have a much greater level of control over your layout, and once you get the basics figured out you'll probably be able to create quicker using raw xml then with the graphical tool anyway. I do wish that there were a nice GUI creator for android out there, the best one that I've ever come across is Droid Draw which I found to be better than the one included with the SDK, but still not as good as I was hoping.
To modify the xml directly you don't need any additional text editors, you do it inside eclipse. Open up your layout file and at the bottom click on the tab that says "Source" when you want to switch back to graphical (good to see the changes that you make to the xml graphically) just click back to the tab that says "Design"
I'm trying to learn Android development and using the Android SDK in Eclipse. I'm following a tutorial to build the Main.XML file on the Graphical Layout tab. It instructs me to drag several Views onto the screen surface, including: EditText, Button, RadioGroup and RadioButton.
My issue is that these Views do not seem to drag. I place the mouse cursor over them, press the right button but the Views are not captured for dragging. There are other Views (such as Gallery) that seems to drag OK but those I'm interested in (to complete the tutorial lesson) do not drag.
Any help making this work properly would be appreciated.
Forget about dragging Android elements. The best approach is to hand code them. Eclipse helps a lot, since it can show you a preview of what you wrote.
you can try to edit the properties of the button i do believe that eclipse lets you do that
Goto Help->Check for New Updates and update
And then, You'll be able to drag n drop the View components onto your xml Graphical Layout. As #MEGA said, its advisable to hand code them. But, still as a beginner, I use Graphical Layout and the set properties using the Properties tab, which is more handy (since we donno what each property is for!)