I've a problem with AAB when I need to change the app locale from within the app itself(i.e. have the language change setting inside the app), the issue is that the AAB gives me only my device languages resources, for example:
my device has English and French languages installed in it, so AAb gives me only the resources for English and French,
but from within the app itself there is a choice to switch the language between English, French, and Indonesian,
in that case, when changing the language to English or French everything is working perfectly, but when changing it to Indonesian, the app simply enters a crash loop as it keep looking for Indonesian language but it can't find.
The problem here is that even if I restarted the app, it enters the crash loop again as the app is still looking for the missing language resources, and here the only solution is to clear cash or reinstall which are the solutions that the normal user won't go through.
Just to mention it, this is how I change the locale through the app:
// get resources
Resources res = context.getResources();
// create the corresponding locale
Locale locale = new Locale(language); // for example "en"
// Change locale settings in the app.
android.content.res.Configuration conf = res.getConfiguration();
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN_MR1) {
conf.setLocale(locale);
conf.setLayoutDirection(locale);
} else {
conf.locale = locale;
}
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.N) {
context.getApplicationContext().createConfigurationContext(conf);
}
res.updateConfiguration(conf, null);
P.S. The app is working perfectly when build it as APK.
Edit:
The PlayCore API now supports downloading the strings for another language on-demand:
https://developer.android.com/guide/playcore/feature-delivery/on-demand#lang_resources
Alternative solution (discouraged):
You can disable the splitting by language by adding the following configuration in your build.gradle
android {
bundle {
language {
// Specifies that the app bundle should not support
// configuration APKs for language resources. These
// resources are instead packaged with each base and
// dynamic feature APK.
enableSplit = false
}
}
}
This latter solution will increase the size of the app.
This is not possible with app bundles: Google Play only downloads resources when the device's selected languages change.
You'll have to use APKs if you want to have an in app language picker.
Details of downloading the language on demand can be found here
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/03/the-latest-android-app-bundle-updates.html
In your app’s build.gradle file:
dependencies {
// This dependency is downloaded from the Google’s Maven repository.
// So, make sure you also include that repository in your project's build.gradle file.
implementation 'com.google.android.play:core:1.10.0'
// For Kotlin users also add the Kotlin extensions library for Play Core:
implementation 'com.google.android.play:core-ktx:1.8.1'
...
}
Get a list of installed languages
val splitInstallManager = SplitInstallManagerFactory.create(context)
val langs: Set<String> = splitInstallManager.installedLanguages
Requesting additional languages
val installRequestBuilder = SplitInstallRequest.newBuilder()
installRequestBuilder.addLanguage(Locale.forLanguageTag("pl"))
splitInstallManager.startInstall(installRequestBuilder.build())
Check above link for full details
After many hours I was finally able to use the on-demand language with the new PlayCore API.
Step 1.) As the user changes the language, you need to first check whether the language is already available, if not then download the language
private void changeLocale(final String languageSelected){
SplitInstallManager splitInstallManager = SplitInstallManagerFactory.create(PlayAgainstComputer.this);
final Set<String> installedLangs = splitInstallManager.getInstalledLanguages();
if(installedLangs.contains(languageSelected)){ // checking if lang already available
Toast.makeText(PlayAgainstComputer.this,"Done! The language settings will take effect, once you restart the app!").show();
}
else{
SplitInstallRequest request =
SplitInstallRequest.newBuilder()
.addLanguage(Locale.forLanguageTag(languageSelected))
.build();
splitInstallManager.startInstall(request);
splitInstallManager.registerListener(new SplitInstallStateUpdatedListener() {
#Override
public void onStateUpdate(#NonNull SplitInstallSessionState splitInstallSessionState) {
if(splitInstallSessionState.status() == SplitInstallSessionStatus.INSTALLED){
Toast.makeText(PlayAgainstComputer.this,"Download complete! The language settings will take effect, once you restart the app!").show();
}
}
});
}}
Step2.) The downloaded languages must be installed when the user starts the app. which is done in the attchBaseContext() method
#Override
protected void attachBaseContext(Context base) {
super.attachBaseContext(base);
SplitCompat.install(this); // It will install all the downloaded langauges into the app
}
Step 3.) You need to tell the Activity to use the chosen language. Following code should be placed before setContentView(R.layout.layout); of that activity
String selectedLanguage = getFromPrefernceOrWhereEverYouSavedIt(); // should be 2 letters. like "de", "es"
Locale locale = new Locale(selectedLanguage);
Locale.setDefault(locale);
Resources resources = getResources();
Configuration config = new Configuration(resources.getConfiguration());
config.locale = locale;
resources.updateConfiguration(config,
getBaseContext().getResources().getDisplayMetrics());
Done!
Please Note
When a user (who chose a non-default/downloaded language) updates the app, that language needs to be downloaded again into the app, so make sure you handle that in your code.
when I used activity.recreate(); after the download finished (to automatically refresh the app for new language) I faced some problems, that is why I used Toast to ask the user to manually restart the app. but you can try other methods
I also noticed some other inconsistencies (even sometimes faced memory leak because of SplitCompat.install(this);) with this method, so make sure you test and optimize it according to your code.
Related
I'd like to localize or event better change the prompt text of User Consent API.
Default behavior:
So instead of Allow example to read the message below and enter the code I want it to be translated in other languages, based on my app's locale not based on device's locale.
This view's translation is handled by the library gms:play-services-auth-api-phone.
Didn 't find any information in their documentation explaining how to customize the message displayed in the bottomSheetView.
About the language of the message, it should update automatically depending on the phone's language.
Since you're receiving an intent from another app, chances are that you won't be able to 'force' a locale sadly.
The only thing you could try is to "force" the Locale on the Android part in your FlutterActivity but note that it could have unpredicted consequences over your app, and I really doubt it'll work.
private void setLocale(Locale locale){
SharedPrefUtils.saveLocale(locale); // optional - Helper method to save the selected language to SharedPreferences in case you might need to attach to activity context (you will need to code this)
Resources resources = getResources();
Configuration configuration = resources.getConfiguration();
DisplayMetrics displayMetrics = resources.getDisplayMetrics();
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN_MR1){
configuration.setLocale(locale);
} else{
configuration.locale=locale;
}
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT > Build.VERSION_CODES.N){
getApplicationContext().createConfigurationContext(configuration);
} else {
resources.updateConfiguration(configuration,displayMetrics);
}
}
Code retrieved from this StackOverflow post, credit to the author.
I had this setting in gradle
I had uploaded .aab playstore.
The app is multilingual namely English and Bahasa
android {
// When building Android App Bundles, the splits block is ignored.
splits {...}
// Instead, use the bundle block to control which types of configuration APKs
// you want your app bundle to support.
bundle {
language {
// Specifies that the app bundle should not support
// configuration APKs for language resources. These
// resources are instead packaged with each base and
// dynamic feature APK.
enableSplit = true
}
density {
// This property is set to true by default.
enableSplit = true
}
abi {
// This property is set to true by default.
enableSplit = true
}
}
}
Problem: Once I downloaded app from play-store i can just see English strings in app and Bahasa language is not coming when I switch the language
Question : Does specifying language-split = true causing this
Everything you're doing is okay, it seems that when your device doesn't contains specified language you selected from app (I.e. language settings from App), Play core library fails to fetch that resources for you because your device doesn't support that Locale.
So, the solution is to manually request for it to download that resources for you.
You can do that by making request to SplitsInstallManager.
Create your new SplitsInstallRequest and provide it to SplitsInstallManager so that it would provide that resources for you.
Check out code snippet below:
// Creates a request to download and install additional language resources.
val request = SplitInstallRequest.newBuilder()
// Uses the addLanguage() method to include French language resources in the request.
// Note that country codes are ignored. That is, if your app
// includes resources for “fr-FR” and “fr-CA”, resources for both
// country codes are downloaded when requesting resources for "fr".
.addLanguage(Locale.forLanguageTag("your language code here"))
.build()
// Submits the request to install the additional language resources.
splitInstallManager.startInstall(request)
Refer here about more details.
#Jael ... Has a good answer which he shared which I was not aware of so [+1] for the help
But I could resolve this by
language { enableSplit = false }
...and if so, how?
We make a dedicated Android device for use in an industrial environment. It's basically a tablet, but with only one app running. The user is not expected to access any other features of the device and even the system settings, like WiFi and Time settings are performed through our app instead of through the Android Settings widget. So basically every button and message they see uses our strings.xml file.
Currently all of our customers are satisfied to use the default US-English settings but we will soon have some customers who want local languages and have supplied us with translation files. Currently one of them is Romanian, which is not a language with any native support on this device (a Samsung Galaxy tab 4); another is Czech.
So we want to add strings.xml files in appropriate res folders, for the non-English languages and a dropdown in our app to select which language we're using. Programmatically we think we can use Locale to set which strings.xml file it uses, so for example, if Romanian has been selected from the dropdown we would use Locale to set the tablet into Romanian so all of our app's UI will use the Romanian strings.xml file.
Our settings, including the new dropdown, are inaccessible to customers - they're set at the customer site by a field-service engineer.
Questions:
Will this work? I.e., can we control which strings.xml file it uses via Locale, even if the device has no native support for that language?
Since Romanian is not a natively-supported language with this device we assume that system messages will still come up in English. Is this true? (it's not a problem if it does - system messages are rare with our app and the users of our products are trained to contact support if that happens. I just want to make sure that if we set the Locale to Romanian, or Czech or some other language without native support it won't crash the tablet if it does try to issue a system message).
Will this work? I.e., can we control which strings.xml file it uses via Locale, even if the device has no native support for that language?
Yes, you can, by updating Locale within Configuration (see an example below). If you try to use the locale for which there are no corresponding resources (either within your app or system), the default string resources (res/values/strings.xml) of your app will be utilized.
Since Romanian is not a natively-supported language with this device we assume that system messages will still come up in English. Is this true?
It is true, if English is the current system locale.
I just want to make sure that if we set the Locale to Romanian, or Czech or some other language without native support it won't crash the tablet if it does try to issue a system message.
Your app won't crash. Locale changes made within an app effect locale resources of the app, not system one's.
An example to answer "if so, how?" The method can be used to test locale changes while an Activity is running*.
public static void changeLocale(Context context, String locale) {
Resources res = context.getResources();
Configuration conf = res.getConfiguration();
conf.locale = new Locale(locale);
res.updateConfiguration(conf, res.getDisplayMetrics());
}
* You might want to call recreate() to see string resource changes "on the fly".
Yes you can definitely switch locale of single app. For that you have to extend every activity from a base class like following:
public abstract class MyLangActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
#Override
protected void onCreate(#Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
Locale locale = // get the locale to use...
Configuration conf = getResources().getConfiguration();
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= 17) {
conf.setLocale(locale);
} else {
conf.locale = locale;
}
DisplayMetrics metrics = getResources().getDisplayMetrics();
getResources().updateConfiguration(conf, metrics);
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
}
}
Now about the issue of device not supporting the language applied. The device font being used might not have support for characters in the custom language file. You might use your own fonts files to support that.
The best way to do this is to actually set the device locale. The code to do that is
Class<?> activityManagerNative = Class.forName("android.app.ActivityManagerNative");
Object am = activityManagerNative.getMethod("getDefault").invoke(activityManagerNative);
Object config = am.getClass().getMethod("getConfiguration").invoke(am);
config.getClass().getDeclaredField("locale").set(config, item.getLocale());
config.getClass().getDeclaredField("userSetLocale").setBoolean(config, true);
am.getClass().getMethod("updateConfiguration", android.content.res.Configuration.class).invoke(am, config);
ActivityManagerNative.java
package android.app;
public abstract class ActivityManagerNative implements IActivityManager {
public static IActivityManager getDefault(){
return null;
}
}
IActivityManager
package android.app;
import android.content.res.Configuration;
import android.os.RemoteException;
public interface IActivityManager {
public abstract Configuration getConfiguration () throws RemoteException;
public abstract void updateConfiguration (Configuration configuration) throws RemoteException;
}
This way you'll set the device locale, and let everything change through the normal pathways. You'll need the android:name="android.permission.CHANGE_CONFIGURATION" permission in your manifest. This is a secure permission, but installing yourself as a system app shouldn't be a problem for you.
Override getResources in Application and BaseActivity
#Override
public Resources getResources() {
if(mRes == null)
mRes = new PowerfulResources(getAssets(),new DisplayMetrics(), null);
return mRes;
}
public static class PowerfulResources extends Resources{
/**
* Create a new Resources object on top of an existing set of assets in an
* AssetManager.
*
* #param assets Previously created AssetManager.
* #param metrics Current display metrics to consider when
* selecting/computing resource values.
* #param config Desired device configuration to consider when
*/
public PowerfulResources(AssetManager assets, DisplayMetrics metrics, Configuration config) {
super(assets, metrics, config);
}
#NonNull
#Override
public String getString(int id) throws NotFoundException {
//do your stuff here
return super.getString(id);
}
}
also read this
I am trying to change my device's language in my app. I have this code:
Locale locale = new Locale("en_US");
Locale.setDefault(locale);
Configuration config = new Configuration();
config.locale = locale;
getApplicationContext().getResources().updateConfiguration(config, null);
Log.i("some","Well, I tried!");
But this code does not change state of my device, and in LogCat I can see "Well, I tried" message. What are the possible reasons of such strange behaviour?
Edit this line
getApplicationContext().getResources().updateConfiguration(config, null);
like this:
context.getApplicationContext().getResources().updateConfiguration(config, null);
If you came here for language problems for builds after Summer 2021, it may have nothing to do with your code. We had the same issue and the problem was the new bundle (.aab) requirement (required since Summer 2021).
With app bundles, devices download only the code and resources they require to run your app. So, for language resources, a user’s device downloads only your app’s language resources that match the one or more languages currently selected in the device’s settings.
Read further
Basically, the language file is not downloaded if the device does not support that language. There are 2 ways to solve it:
Option 1 (Easiest): Just disable the bundle optimization
Add this in your build.gradle file:
android {
bundle {
language {
enableSplit = false
}
}
// ...
// Other configuration
}
Option 2: Download the language file on demand
Use the method described here.
How to debug
Before applying these methods,
Delete the app
Add the new language in the device settings
Download the app again
If the app supports the new language then the problem is definitely the bundle optimization and the above mentioned solutions will work.
To change the applications locale manually.
You will need to set the locale using the code below.
Locale locale = new Locale("AR"); // AR here is for arabic
Locale.setDefault(locale);
Configuration config = new Configuration();
config.locale = locale;
getBaseContext().getResources().updateConfiguration(config,
getBaseContext().getResources().getDisplayMetrics());
Make sure it is set in the activity "onCreate" method before calling the "setContentView" method.
Also see that the resource files are specified for the language required.
I have some code I want to test. I want to check if a String is properly composed out of various strings that I have in resources. The challenge here is to deal with multiple translations in my resources. I know that locale can be an issue when testing a desktop application and that it is recommended that you create locale-independent tests.
I've found that you can set the locale programatically, but it was not recommended (see Change language programmatically in Android). While this question is aimed at changing locale at runtime when running an app normally, I was wondering if there was a better solution to my problem.
If it's just for testing, then you can change the locale programmatically without any issues. It will change the configuration of your app and you will be able to test your code with the new locale. It has the same effect as if a user has changed it. If you want to automate your tests, you can write a script that changes locale using adb shell as described here, and launch your tests afterwards.
Here is an example of testing translations of word "Cancel" for English, German and Spanish locales:
public class ResourcesTestCase extends AndroidTestCase {
private void setLocale(String language, String country) {
Locale locale = new Locale(language, country);
// here we update locale for date formatters
Locale.setDefault(locale);
// here we update locale for app resources
Resources res = getContext().getResources();
Configuration config = res.getConfiguration();
config.locale = locale;
res.updateConfiguration(config, res.getDisplayMetrics());
}
public void testEnglishLocale() {
setLocale("en", "EN");
String cancelString = getContext().getString(R.string.cancel);
assertEquals("Cancel", cancelString);
}
public void testGermanLocale() {
setLocale("de", "DE");
String cancelString = getContext().getString(R.string.cancel);
assertEquals("Abbrechen", cancelString);
}
public void testSpanishLocale() {
setLocale("es", "ES");
String cancelString = getContext().getString(R.string.cancel);
assertEquals("Cancelar", cancelString);
}
}
Here are the execution results in Eclipse:
Android O update.
When running in Android O method Locale.setDefault(Category.DISPLAY, locale) shall be used (see behaviour changes for more detail).
The current accepted answer didn't help me.
But #Dennis's comment helped to solve the Problem for me.
Use Robolectric and override the locale by specifying a resource qualifier.
Add for example #Config(qualifiers="de-port") for the German language.
#Test
#Config(qualifiers = "de-port")
fun testGetLocaleGerman(){ ... }
Robolectrics Documentation