Apps Is Eclipse and the graphic editors for Android layout really as poor as I find it right now?

[BlueDevelop]

Hello
Please correct me if I am wrong, or if you have some input to solve some of the issues I am now about to state, because after searching the web for a long time it seems I am not alone with these frustrations.

I am getting really annoyed with the Eclipse graphic editor, and would like to know if it somthing in my setup or just how it is suppose to work.

Whenever I try and change a property the menu buttons above the layout starts flashing, I can not scroll in the properties window and the Eclipse seems to slow down to the point where adding an image to drawable takes 30 seconds before the copy pop up is shown.

If I add android:fillViewport="true" to a scrollview the graphic editor randomly removes it, and going into the XML view some lines randomly disapear if try and edit the XML directly.

I am running Windows 7, 64 bit, on a duel boot MacBook, should I rather install the enviroment on the Mac OS part?

I am really disappointed that this should be the best graphic editor for Android layout out there. I am stunned there is no option for support and scale for all screen sizes as an example.

I am a huge Android supporter, but if I compare the graphical editor for this platform to the one on the iOS platform, then the iOS graphic editor in XCode is miles ahead of the Android alternativ.
I am aware that they have less screen sizes to support, but still amazed that the XML editors for Android layout which exists are so poor, and that Google have not atleast made the efford to make some decent tools for the platform.

As I said ealier, please correct me if you think im wrong, and it would be great if you could point me to soloutions or alternatives.

Thanks
Jacob

 

[jonbonazza]

I haven't noticed these issues, however I generally don't use the graphical editor, but instead directly modify the XML. Also, I prefer to use the linux version of Eclipse, as the windows version is just... nasty... It's very slow and much buggier than linux. I can't comment on mac as I have never owned, nor will I ever own one.

 

[alostpacket]

Yep I'm with jonbonazza. I don't really use the Graphical editor, though it's leaps ahead of where it used to be. Mostly I would only use it to check devices layouts after having coded them.

Personally I would recommend becoming really, really familiar with coding the XML by hand. Also look into Styles and Themes.

There is also an overabundance of information here: Design | Android Developers

My experience with Eclipse is that it runs pretty well on both OSX and Win7 well provided you adjust its default memory limit.

 

[jonbonazza]

Yep I'm with jonbonazza. I don't really use the Graphical editor, though it's leaps ahead of where it used to be. Mostly I would only use it to check devices layouts after having coded them.

Personally I would recommend becoming really, really familiar with coding the XML by hand. Also look into Styles and Themes.

There is also an overabundance of information here: Design | Android Developers

My experience with Eclipse is that it runs pretty well on both OSX and Win7 well provided you adjust its default memory limit.

The memory limit is probably what I have issues with on Windows... Typing and auto-fill seems to be very slow and even crashes sometimes. I haven't used the windows version in a long while though, so perhaps that has changed. I should try to play with the memory limit and see if it resolves the issues--provided they are even still there.