3.6. Examining the main.xml File

XML is a natural way to express a GUI’s contents. It allows you, in a human- and computer-readable form, to say which layouts and components you wish to use, and to specify their attributes, such as size, position and color. The ADT Plugin can then parse the XML and generate the code that produces the actual GUI. Figure 3.26 shows the final main.xml file after you perform the steps in Section 3.5. We reformatted the XML and added some comments to make the XML more readable. (Eclipse’s Source > Format command can help you with this.) As you read the XML, notice that each XML attribute name that contains multiple words does not contain spaces, whereas the corresponding properties in the Properties window do. For example, the XML attribute android:paddingTop corresponds to the property Padding top in the Properties window. When the IDE displays property names, it displays the multiword names as separate words for readability.