Easy way to build Android UI?

The Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin for Eclipse includes a visual editor for android application layout files:

http://developer.android.com/tools/help/adt.html

Droiddraw is good. I have been using it since long and haven't faced any issues yet (though it crashes sometimes, but thats ok)

DroidDraw seems to be very useful. It has a clean and easy interface and it is a freeware. Available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. I advice a donation.

If you don't like it, you should take a look at this site. There are some other options and other useful tools.

I found that using the http://pencil.evolus.vn/ together with the pencil-stencils from the http://code.google.com/p/android-ui-utils/ project works exceptionally well. Very simple to use, its very easy to mock up elaborate designs

Allow me to be the one to slap a little reality onto this topic. There is no good GUI tool for working with Android. If you're coming from a native application GUI environment like, say, Delphi, you're going to be sadly disappointed in the user experience with the ADK editor and DroidDraw. I've tried several times to work with DroidDraw in a productive way, and I always go back to rolling the XML by hand.

The ADK is a good starting point, but it's not easy to use. Positioning components within layouts is a nightmare. DroidDraw looks like it would be fantastic, but I can't even open existing, functional XML layouts with it. It somehow loses half of the layout and can't pull in the images that I've specified for buttons, backgrounds, etc.

The stark reality is that the Android developer space is in sore need of a flexible, easy-to-use, robust GUI development tool similar to those used for .NET and Delphi development.

Not saying this is the best way to go, but its good to have options. Necessitas is a project that ports Qt to android. It is still in its early stages and lacking full features, but for those who know Qt and don't wanna bother with the terrible lack of good tools for Android UI would be wise to at least consider using this.

http://www.appinventor.mit.edu/

Creating an App Inventor app begins in your browser, where you design how the app will look. Then, like fitting together puzzle pieces, you set your app's behavior. All the while, through a live connection between your computer and your phone, your app appears on your phone.

You can also try this. If you like the model view controller concept and fast prototyping then I would say you will like the idea behind it;)

SimpleUi ( https://github.com/bitstars/SimpleUi )

The generated UI (code below):

The complete code to create this Android UI:

I use it in real applications, not only for fast prototyping or dialogs and its well tested over the years. The concept is based on the model view control principle and for most common scenarios there are ready to use components which automatically look correct on any device. I don't say it should be used for any UI (e.g. listviews should be done by hand) but for most usecases this should be quite handy ;) Oh and feel free to fork it and improve it further if you want

This looks like a more promising solution: IntelliJ Android UI Designer.

http://blogs.jetbrains.com/idea/2012/06/android-ui-designer-coming-in-intellij-idea-12/

This is an old question, that unfortunately even several years on doesn't have a good solution. I've just ported an app from iOS (Obj C) to Android. The biggest problem was not the back end code (for many/most folks, if you can code in Obj C you can code in Java) but porting the native interfaces. What Todd said above, UI layout is still a complete pain. In my experience, the fastest wat to develop a reliable UI that supports multiple formats etc is in good 'ol HTML.

The easiest way is with REBOL 3:

http://rebolforum.com/index.cgi?f=printtopic&permalink=Nick25-Aug-2013/10:08:38-7:00&archiveflag=new

Here are 10 fully functional demo programs, with GUIs. These run on Android and desktop OSs, using the exact same code:

REBOL []
load-gui
view [text "Hello World!"]




REBOL [title: "Tiny Note Editor"]
do %r3-gui.r3  ; download this file manually or just use load-gui as above
view [
a1: area
button "Save" on-action [write %notes.txt get-face a1]
button "Load" on-action [set-face a1 to-string read %notes.txt]
]




REBOL [title: "Data Entry to CSV File"]
do %r3-gui.r3
view [
text "First Name:"
f1: field
text "Last Name:"
f2: field
button "Submit" on-action [
write/append %cntcts.txt rejoin [
mold get-face f1 " " mold get-face f2 newline
]
request "" "Saved"
]
a1: area
button "Load" on-action [set-face a1 to-string read %cntcts.txt]
]




REBOL [title: "Text File Reader (How to use a text list file selector)"]
do %r3-gui.r3
view [
a1: area
button "Load" on-action [
files: read %./
view/modal [
text "File Name:"
t2: text-list files on-action [
set-face a1 to-string read(to-file pick files get-face t2)
unview
]
]
]
]




REBOL [title: "List-View (Grid) Example"]
do %r3-gui.r3
view [
text-table ["1" 200 "2" 100 "3"][
["asdf" "a" "4"]
["sdfg" "b" "3"]
["dfgh" "c" "2"]
["fghj" "d" "1"]
]
]




REBOL [title: "Calculator"]
do %r3-gui.r3
stylize [
btn: button [
facets: [init-size: 50x50]
actors: [on-action:[set-face f join get-face f get-face face]]
]
]
view [
hgroup [
f: field return
btn "1"  btn "2"  btn "3"  btn " + "  return
btn "4"  btn "5"  btn "6"  btn " - "  return
btn "7"  btn "8"  btn "9"  btn " * "  return
btn "0"  btn "."  btn " / "   btn "=" on-action [
attempt [set-face f form do get-face f]
]
]
]




REBOL [title: "Sliding Tile Puzzle"]
do %r3-gui.r3
stylize [
p: button [
facets: [init-size: 60x60  max-size: 60x60]
actors: [
on-action: [
t: face/gob/offset
face/gob/offset: x/gob/offset
x/gob/offset: t
]
]
]
]
view/options [
hgroup [
p "8"   p "7"   p "6"   return
p "5"   p "4"   p "3"   return
p "2"   p "1"   x: box 60x60 white
]
] [bg-color: white]




REBOL [title: "Math Test"]
do %r3-gui.r3
random/seed now
x: does [rejoin [random 10 " + " random 20]]
view [
f1: field (x)
text "Answer:"
f2: field on-action [
either (get-face f2) = (form do get-face f1) [
request "Yes!" "Yes!"][request "No!" "No!"
]
set-face f1 x
set-face f2 ""
focus f2
]
]




REBOL [title: "Minimal Cash Register"]
do %r3-gui.r3
stylize [fld: field [init-size: 80]]
view [
hgroup [
text "Cashier:"   cashier: fld
text "Item:"      item: fld
text "Price:"     price: fld on-action [
if error? try [to-money get-face price] [
request "Error" "Price error"
return none
]
set-face a rejoin [
get-face a mold get-face item tab get-face price newline
]
set-face item copy "" set-face price copy ""
sum: 0
foreach [item price] load get-face a [
sum: sum + to-money price
]
set-face subtotal form sum
set-face tax form sum * .06
set-face total form sum * 1.06
focus item
]
return
a: area 600x300
return
text "Subtotal:"   subtotal: fld
text "Tax:"        tax: fld
text "Total:"      total: fld
button "Save" on-action [
items: replace/all (mold load get-face a) newline " "
write/append %sales.txt rejoin [
items newline get-face cashier newline now/date newline
]
set-face item copy "" set-face price copy ""
set-face a copy ""    set-face subtotal copy ""
set-face tax copy "" set-face total copy ""
]
]
]




REBOL [title: "Requestors"]
do %r3-gui.r3
x: request/ask "Question" "Do you like this?."
either x = false [print "No!"] [print "Yes!"]
x: request/custom "" "Do you like this?" ["Yay" "Boo"]
either x = false [print "Boo!"] [print "Yay!"]
view [button "Click me" on-action[request "Ok" "You clicked the button."]]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mycompany.easyGUI try this tool its not for free but offers simple way to create android ui on your phone