Develop Reference

Set landscape orientation without locking sensor orientation

I'm working on an application that has an inline video player. I need to reproduce the fullscreen behavior of Youtube.
When the user goes to landscape rotating the device I catch it via onConfigurationChanged and make the corresponding layout modifications.
However, I also have a button to set fullscreen. I need this button to go to landscpe (ergo, fullscreen) but don't lock the orientation change via sensor.
Here is what I'm currently doing on onConfigurationChanged:
#Override
public void onConfigurationChanged(Configuration newConfig) {
super.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);
if (this.isLandscape(newConfig.orientation)){
this.goToFullScreenMode();
}else{
this.goToInlineMode();
}
}
And here is what I'm doing in the button but failing because it locks the Activity in landscape:
this.getActivity().setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_SENSOR_LANDSCAPE);
What I need is to go to landscape mode but allow the user to change back to portrait with the sensor, like Youtube does.
I can do it by just locking in landscape until the device is horizontal (by reading directly from the sensor) and then unlock the orientation again. I don't think this is the most "correct" way of doing it.

Greetings from the futuristic year of 2016.
The paths of life took me back to this same predicament on another Android application and I found out that the REAL answer to the problem was to simply add this...
setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_UNSPECIFIED);
...right after setting the orientation to the desired setting.
Here lies my own previous answer
Due to a lack of answers and because I was not abale to solve this in
an elegant way I finally ended using an OrientationListener to get the
raw degrees of the device.
With that I was able to release the user's orientation configuration
once the device was positioned like the actual layout.
If someone is interested in having more info about it just let me
know.

Create a layout-land directory in res and put the landscape version of your layout XML file in that directory.
or else put this line in your activity tag in manifest file
android:screenOrientation="landscape";

Try this..
setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE);
Or in your manifest
<activity
android:name="Activity"
android:screenOrientation="landscape" />

Put this in ur Manifest for your Respective activity
<activity
android:name="YourActivityName goes here"
android:screenOrientation="landscape" />

Make screenOrientation configurable?

My activity forces portrait mode using android:screenOrientation="portrait" in the manifest. However, some of my users (on tablets that are by default in landscape mode) have asked me to make this a configurable option. Is it possible to set the orientation in code (without triggering an orientation-change animation, so before the activity is actually displayed)?

Yes, simply call:
Activity.setRequestedOrientation (int requestedOrientation)
Taken from
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html#setRequestedOrientation%28int%29
If you want to lock the screen orientation after setting it, take a look at this post:
Screen orientation lock

Android screen orientation detection without layout change

I want to detect layout change in my activity while keeping the widgets where they are. Is there any way to do this. I tried setOrientation(LinearLayout.HORIZONTAL) and it doesn't seem to work. Any ideas?

Try to add android:configChanges="orientation" in your manifest file in the activity and you may be able to get the orientation in the onResume method of your activity by using
if(getResources().getConfiguration().orientation == Configuration.ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE){
//WHAT TO DO IN LANDSCAPE
} else {
//WHAT TO DO IN PORTRAIT
}

As a lower level solution, you could use one of the Sensors, to detect the orientation/tilt of the device. If you don't want layout changes you can constraint your activity to portrait or landscape only in the manifest...
You can play with the app Elixir to see what values a specific sensor returns.

Android - detect orientation change, but have interface not respond

Is it possible in Android to capture screen rotate events but not actually have the activity respond to the rotate events?
To make things more difficult, I've got an activity backed by a TabActivity, and in one of the tabs I want to rotate some of the content area on screen - but leave the tab in portrait mode.
I've tried setting the activity orientation to portrait in the manifest, but then I no longer get the onConfigurationChanged(..) events. However, If I remove this line, the whole tab rotates as well.
Any help appreciated!

You might want to add "orientation" to activity's configChanges property in AndroidManifest.
android:configChanges="orientation"
http://androidappdocs.appspot.com/guide/topics/manifest/activity-element.html#config

Set the orientation to portrait mode in the manifest as you did, but listen directly to the accelerometer sensor (which is the sensor from which Android derives the orientation of the device) updates and parse them yourself to know when the orientation changed.
It's actually quite easy to do. See here for an example: http://www.anddev.org/accessing_the_accelerometer-t499.html

Orientation issue with landscape mode

I am displaying Timer on a screen .
After starting the Timer , I am changing the orientation from the portrait to landscape mode. In order to avoid the timer getting reset when changing from the portrait to landscape mode , I am adding the following code to the activity declaration in the manifest:
android:configChanges="orientation"
The problem I am facing is that , when the screen is switching from the portrait to landscape mode , the layout which gets displayed is same as portrait & not in landscape mode. Only a part of the screen of the landscape orientation is being occupied.
Is there any way by which we can avoid resetting the timer from changing from the portrait to landscape mode & also have a proper landscape layout?
Kindly provide your inputs.
Thanks in advance.

There is a simple way of doing this.
if you have two different layouts for landscape and portrait then let the android handle all the stuff for you. i mean do not override methods onConfigurationChange() method unless strictly required and do not add android:configChanges="orientation". just make different folders for portrait mode and landscape mode. viz. layout and layout-land....
To save present state of views use bundle. whenever orientation changes android reload activity and call onCreate() method. This saved bundle is passed in onCreate() method. Now you can retrieve views' state from this bundle.
now next question will be how to use this bundle. Then here is the quick example.
override onSavedInstanceState() method to save bundle.
Thanks.

Is there any way by which we can avoid
resetting the timer from changing from
the portrait to landscape mode?
Yes, store the value somewhere during onPause and read it during onResume.
Also have a proper landscape layout
Read up on Providing Resources, in particular table 2's "Screen orientation" section which also links to a very nice page about handling runtime changes.

All you need to do is make the manifest file set the screenOrientation="landscape"
<activity android:name=".main"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:screenOrientation="landscape">
<intent-filter>
That turns off the auto sensor on only the form that you name to have landscape.