Android Studio Where is "view" in mode?

Question

New to AS, following the official "Build a simple user interface". In "Add a text box", 3. Click the view in the design editor.

I am in Design tab, but unable to find view. Google found this in SO, it says view is actually Preview. Ok, this is my screens, after toggling to Text and came back, Preview shows up in the menu but disabled.

Is it because I have 3 warning and error at upper right corner of Design mode?

Clicked on this warning/error popup, clicked on the blue underline for each warning/error, it would go away until a "no warning" bell replacing the red "3", still Preview is disabled.

Environment is Windows 10 Pro, AS version 2.3.3

This is very inconsistent and buggy.

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 13 '17 at 05:27

0

It's not a bug. Read the error carefully. You might not be aware of ConstraintLayout.

It's like a Relative Layout on Steroids.

This tutorial might help.

Here, you need to provide at least one Horizontal and one Vertical constraint to your view in order to position it to your desired location on the screen.

answered Oct 13 '17 at 05:27

Daksh Gargas

3,498
2
23
37

1) Read the error carefully. Eliminated all error at the upper corner, so the red 3 became a bell, see original screenshot. Still no "Preview". Toggled to Text view then back to Design view, "Preview" shows up even though is gray out in the View menu. Notice nothing was added/changed. 2) Read the recommended Tutorial, not quite sure where to add constraint, in the Text view's XML? Thanks – Jeb50 Oct 14 '17 at 23:44
Wait, what? You still didn't get it? Wow. – Daksh Gargas Oct 15 '17 at 02:31
Maybe you should use `RelativeLayout` instead. – Daksh Gargas Oct 15 '17 at 02:33

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 07 '18 at 16:21

0

I think that's because you are at design editor. Switch to text editor and you will see the preview on your right.

answered Feb 07 '18 at 16:21

zero_yu

493
5
15

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 21 '18 at 05:15

0

You are here:

Click on Layout > Design

Now select the text box, by clicking on it:

And you will get what instructions are explaining:

You can now see the resizing handles on each corner (squares), and the constraint anchors on each side (circles).

edited May 21 '18 at 05:15

Suleyman

2,765
2
18
31

answered May 20 '18 at 22:30

Sergej Glavan

1

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 04 '18 at 04:31

I had the same problem - just starting and it was confusing. The error needs to be fixed first, and I found the solution on another thread: Failed to load AppCompat ActionBar with unknown error in android studio

Basically modify /res/values/styles.xml from:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
</style>

to:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Base.Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
</style>

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited May 14 '19 at 07:31

It's simple, just be on the same Blueprint and then click on the plain text constraint. enter image description here

And it will be something like this with some circles (Anchor) and some resizable edges. then move the anchor to the Top until you get a 16dp text in between your plain text constraint and the top margin, do the same for the left side view also. Once you have followed the instructions it will look something like the above image.

Android Studio Where is "view" in mode?

5 Answers5

This tutorial might help.