Problems with Android XML Editor and Eclipse...Hard to manually edit XML

It's been a few years since I have last developed android apps. Since then, a graphical editor was added to Eclipse that allows you to generate the XML for an layout in a WYSIWYG fashion (part of the android sdk). I like it. Speeds things up.

However, with this editor I am having a heck of a time editing the xml in the "xml view" as opposed to the "graphical layout" view.

When in the XML view, I can no longer use a lot of shortcut keys. Like ctl-c or ctl-v (cut and paste) and most frustratingly I can't use the "delete" key. When I perform a cut and paste, nothing happens. And checking the clipboard, I can see that nothing gets copied in the first place. When hitting the delete key, strange side effects happen. Somtimes nothing...othertimes enter widgets are removed. I can't figure it out.

While in the XML view, I can use the mouse to cut and paste and everything is fine. I can use the "backspace" key to remove text instead of the delete key. So I can get everything in there with no issues. But...this is a major pain in the backside. I have been programming certain ways for 20 years and it is hard to get myself to use the mouse to cut and paste and whatnot.

Has anyone else eperienced this?? I haven't found anything on the internet pertaining to this problem.

Note: I know I can change the editor preferences in Eclipse to just use the normal eclipse xml editor but I lose t开发者_运维技巧he WYSIWYG display...which is nice to have for visualization.

If you have seen this problem or know of a way to get around it...please, please, please let me know.

I don't think it makes a difference, but here are my specs.

Eclipse: Version: 4.1.0 Build id: M20110912-1510

Android Development Tools 12.0.0.v201106281929-138431

This is fixed in ADT 20 Preview 3, released today.

http://tools.android.com/download/adt-20-preview

Although this is not exactly a solution (and hopefully doesn't earn me some downvotes) I've found a nice compromise is to open the layout twice, once in the android layout editor and once in the normal XML editor.

You can do this by right clicking the file (or alt clicking on mac I assume) and selecting "Open With", you should see all the different android editors, a text editor and an XML editor.

The nice thing about opening it twice is you can have it side-by-side (drag it to another pane), the only issue now is that you have to give focus to the android layout editor in order for it to update, but at least you have your shortcuts and delete keys.

I found workaround(fix). Redefine shortcuts for copy and paste in preferences->Keys to some other key combinations, then standard cmd-c cmd-v will start work. I did not had issues with delete, but it may work for other key issues. I am on mac so not tested on windows.

I can also confirm this behavior, though I didn't recall having this problem on earlier version of Eclipse so I strongly suspect it's the 4.x version of eclipse that's interfering with the xml editor, I use even newer 4.2+

edit: you may want to track this issue http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=27155

I have the same issues, delete, ctrl-v not working in the latest Eclipse as of July 2012 with the latest Android plugin on Linux Mint 64 bit. It's definiteley (in my case at least) the android XML editor that is at fault. As Damon says, opening the xml using eclipse with "open with" and not choosing the android editor fixes the issue. The android editor can be open in parallel.

You can manually define commands and shortcut keys through Windows > Preferences > General > Keys

I actually copied "Ctrl + C", "Ctrl + V", "Ctrl + Y", "Ctrl + Z" commands and define the "When"s as "Editing XML source".

It works!

The issue I face, which is demo-ed here (not posted by me) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUnOesjL1IE, is fixed by disabling "Automatically format the XML edited by the visual layout editor". The formatting for layout XML is gone for sure, but at least I can edit the file properly.

In word, Tools - options - Edit tab, be sure the typing replaces selection is checked. Spacebar key will then work to delete text.