Eclipse and Android XML layouts gives "'default' is not a best match for any device/locale combination"

Neil Traft picture Neil Traft · Sep 23, 2010 · Viewed 13.2k times · Source

This is my first time making an app with XML layouts. In the past I have always dynamically generated my layouts at runtime, so don't worry, I am NOT an Android newbie. Still, this is my first time with static layouts. So what's this message all about?

[2010-09-22 20:43:23 - Rockport] 'default' is not a best match for any device/locale combination.
[2010-09-22 20:43:23 - Rockport] Displaying it with 'Locale Language ___Region __, Normal Screen, Short screen aspect ratio, Landscape Orientation, No Dock, Day time, Medium Density, Finger-based touchscreen, Soft keyboard, Qwerty keybard, Trackball navigation, Screen resolution 480x320'

It gets printed to my Eclipse console every time I open up one of the layouts in the layout/ folder. If I open the layout from any other folder, such as layout-land/ then I get no message. Is it just the graphical layout editor saying, "Here's how I'm going to display things for you?" Can I safely ignore it?

Answer

user492822 picture user492822 · Dec 10, 2010

No don't ignore it, it does mean something.

What it is saying is that Eclipse has found a layout which it believes is more accurate and is switching to it.

So for example if you have a default layout and a low density layout, it will switch to the low density layout. Any changes you make to the layout will be in the low density code not in the default code.

I don't know how to switch back, which is getting very annoying, apart from closing the xml and opening up the correct one.

If anyone knows how to switch, and yes I have tried changing the settings at the top of the editor between low density and medium density devices, please tell me. Thanks.