Menu
To make room for the Layout Editor, hide the Project window. To do so, select View > Tool Windows > Project, or just click Project on the left side of the Android Studio screen. If your editor shows the XML source, click the Design tab at the top right of the window.
go to settings. search for Layout Validation. Click on KeyMap. Double click on Layout Validation.
Layout Validation allows you to simultaneously preview layouts on different devices and display configurations, including variable font sizes or user languages, making it easy to test for a variety of common layout problems.
A layout defines the structure for a user interface in your app, such as in an activity. All elements in the layout are built using a hierarchy of View and ViewGroup objects. A View usually draws something the user can see and interact with.
UPDATE 2 (2020-03-16)
The newer Android Studio version changed the location of this button. Now if you want to see the layout design preview you will need to press one of the buttons at the top right of your xml. The button that looks like an image icon will open the design dashboard, while the button next to it will open the split view where the design is placed next to the XML code:
ORIGINAL (2013-05-21)
You should have a Design button next to the Text button under the xml text editor:
Or you can use the Preview button in the upper right corner to add a preview window next to the XML code:
UPDATE:
If you dont have it, then do this: View -> Tool Windows -> Preview
Several people seem to have the same problem. The issue is that the IDE only displays the preview if editing a layout file in the res/layout* directory of an Android project.
In particular, it won't show if editing a file in build/res/layout* since those are not source directory but output directory. In your case, you are editing a file in the build/ directory...
The Resource folder is set automatically, and can be viewed (and changed) in Project Structure > Modules > [Module name] > Android > Resources directory.
In case that helps anyone, I had the same issue today where the 'design / text' tabs were missing. I had switched to the dark theme and thought maybe that was the issue, so went back to Preferences / Appearance (under IDE settings) switched back to Default Theme, and that reset everything correctly for me. I could also then switch again to Darcula theme and the tabs were still there, so seems like switching themes is a way to reset the IDE windows/tabs.
Select MainActivity.java file from the left pane, as shown in the red colored rectangle.
Left click the XML Tag icon as shown in the red colored circle.
Select the "activity_main.xml(layout)" option shown highlighted in the below figure.
The following worked for me:
-> file
-> settings
-> plugins
-> disable the android support plugin
-> you will be prompted to restart
-> once restarted re-enable the plugin and other dependency plugins that might have been disabled in the process
-> you will be prompted to restart once again. Hopefully when android studio restarts the second time the preview should render.
I found 2 quick options to fix this:
Happy coding!
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