Develop Reference

Forcing activity orientation recreates the activity twice

I'm trying to force all the Activities in my app to be either in portrait or landscape mode, exposing a setting to the user.
Basically in the onCreate() I request for the correct orientation somehow like this
#Override
protected void onCreate(final Bundle savedInstanceState) {
setRequestedOrientation(SettingsHelper.getOrientation());
}
In fact what it does is that if we hold the device in portrait mode and the requested orientation is landscape then it simply creates an activity in portrait mode and then it recreates it in landscape. On high end devices this is acceptable since it is instantaneous, however on low end devices it is a disaster since between the creation and recreation there is a 5 second delay...
What I already tried:
- do it in the onResume not only in the onCreate
- define in the manifest android:screenOrientation="nosensor"
- define in the manifest android:screenOrientation="behind"
- define in the manifest android:screenOrientation="unspecified"
- define in the manifest android:configChanges="orientation"
Do you have any idea how to prevent the double creation?

Add this line in your activity tag fo your AmdroidManifest.xml
android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation|screenSize">
Example:
<activity
android:name=".MainActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation|screenSize">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>

setting screenOrientation to portrait doesn't work

I want to run my app in portrait mode, I'm aware this isn't best practice but there are reasons to do this. and while I have disabled the rotation it still is able to rotate on some views will it doesn't on others.
I have this part of code in my Android Manifest:
<activity
android:name="<name>.app.MainActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|keyboard|locale|orientation"
android:screenOrientation="portrait">
I'm using fragments to show different containers depending on user input.
this is the only activity that has fragments.
I have tried a few solutions on this site. including setting portrait mode on by code

You can do it something like below.
After rootView in your java add this line
getActivity().setRequestedOrientation (ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_PORTRAIT); // programmatically
For example:
View rootView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.activityxml, container, false);
getActivity().setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_PORTRAIT);
And also in your manifest change it:
android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden"
as
android:configChanges="keyboardHidden"
<activity
android:name="com.test.activity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:screenOrientation="portrait"
android:configChanges="keyboardHidden" >

try this code
<activity android:name="com.myActivity" android:screenOrientation="portrait"
android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation"
>
</activity>

use below code before super.onCreate.first line of code.it force activity to portrait(of course both side of portrait)
this.setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_SENSOR_PORTRAIT);
the code that you entered android:configChanges="screenSize|orientation" just force activity to don't miss it's stats on rotate(onCreate call just once and if rotate onPause will call)

add Android Manifest:
tools:ignore="LockedOrientationActivity"
android:screenOrientation="portrait">

Set activity to specific orientation before it start

Is there a way I can start activity in a specific orientation (programmatically) without having it to be recreated again? Right now if I call setRequestedOrientation from the the OnCreate and the orientation is different than the current then the activity is destoryed and restarted again.
Thank you

For me solution was to lock orientation of Activity
android:screenOrientation="locked"
, and now it depends only on setRequestedOrientation():
<activity android:name=".SomeActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:screenOrientation="locked">
No restarting anymore.

You can set your orientation in Manifest file
<activity android:name=".SomeActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:screenOrientation="portrait">

If you don't want activity to restart, add configChanges for the activity in AndroidManifest.xml
<activity
android:name="com.myexample.SplashScreen"
android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize"
android:label="#string/app_name" >
and then call setRequestedOrientation to set orientation programtically.
But if you want to lock the activity to 1 orientation. It is good to set it in Manifest by adding android:screenOrientation="portrait"

Screen orientation and values in manifest.xml

I want to use all activities in my form in landscape or portrait.
When user select orientation - this is valid for all activities.
Tried with "behind" option orientation. According to Google - orientation will depend on previous activity.
My first activity use setRequestedOrientation to set selected from user orientation.
Next activities have to follow same orientation.
Do I have to put setRequestedOrientation in their code too? Or really on 'behind' parameter in manifest? Putting setRequestedOrientation may be cause onCreate again?
UPDATE:
Tried "portrait" and setRequestedOrientation() - result is onCreate was called 2 times.
Problem is in next activity -> because of "portrait" in first activity - android started next activity with same orientation. It ignores "landscape" orientation which was set by me.

If you want to have fixed orientation for your activities then you can use-
android:screenOrientation="portrait"
android:screenOrientation="sensorPortrait"
as an attribute to that activity in that manifest. But if you want to set the orientation runtime depending upon what was the previous orientation while launching the application, you need to check for the previous orientation in onCreate() and then set it to that value programmatically there itself using setRequestedOrientation()
UPDATE:
As pointed by #s.co.tt use android:screenOrientation="sensorPortrait" for a better support on tablets.
For more details on the different values for android:screenOrientation and what each of them do, look at the docs:
https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/activity-element.html#screen

<activity
android:name=".Android_mobile_infoActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:screenOrientation="portrait" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>

To handle the changes in orientation, add the following line in AndroidManifest.xml:
android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize"
under <activity> tag as shown below:-
<application
android:allowBackup="true"
----------
---------- >
<activity android:name=".MainActivity"
android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize">
----------
</activity>
----------
</application>
Note: Whenever there is a change in the configuration such as orientation, screenLayout, screenSize, etc., the activity is restarted and its onCreate method is called. To prevent this, we must handle any changes in configuration.

Do it programmatically, for example in an Activity base class
I tryed its working mobile and tablet. use anyone portrait or landscape.
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_PORTRAIT);
//or
setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE);
}
manifest.xml inside application tag
<activity
android:name=".Login_Activity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:screenOrientation="portrait" />
or
<activity
android:name=".Login_Activity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:screenOrientation="landscape" />

In Android studio 3.6.0
android:screenOrientation="portrait"
will give you error you have to either specify
android:screenOrientation="fullSensor" or android:screenOrientation="unspecified"
fullSensor Means either you have ON the "Rotate off" or not it will change the orientation based on you move the phone
unspecified Means if you have ON the Rotate off then it will stay only in that orientation and if not then it will change the orientation based on you move the phone.

From my experience I would recommend to setRequestedOrientation in every activity in onCreate method, onCreate won't be called again it's safe.

For now I put check in onCreate:
m_bSkip = (this.getRequestedOrientation() != MyApp.sInstance.GetScreenOrientation());
if (m_bSkip)
return;
When I enter oncreate and screen orientation is not desired - exit.
When I enter in onCreate and screen orientation is desired one - continue with initialization.
This fixes situation without need of keeping async task related to activity and check for new activity.
Of course all functions: onStart,onResume,onPausde,onStop... have to check this flag to avoid null pointer exception.

go to Android Manifest editor , down there you will see MainActivity.java
click on it , to the right - you will see a new window: scroll down and choose select orientation - "portrait"

Force an Android activity to always use landscape mode

I am using the Android VNC viewer on my HTC G1. But for some reason, that application is always in landscape mode despite my G1 is in portrait mode. Since the Android VNC viewer is open source, I would like know how is it possible hard code an activity to be 'landscape'. I would like to change it to respect the phone orientation.

Looking at the AndroidManifest.xml (link), on line 9:
<activity android:screenOrientation="landscape" android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden" android:name="VncCanvasActivity">
This line specifies the screenOrientation as landscape, but author goes further in overriding any screen orientation changes with configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden". This points to a overridden function in VncCanvasActivity.java.
If you look at VncCanvasActivity, on line 109 is the overrided function:
#Override
public void onConfigurationChanged(Configuration newConfig) {
// ignore orientation/keyboard change
super.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);
}
The author specifically put a comment to ignore any keyboard or orientation changes.
If you want to change this, you can go back to the AndroidManifest.xml file shown above, and change the line to:
<activity android:screenOrientation="sensor" android:name="VncCanvasActivity">
This should change the program to switch from portrait to landscape when the user rotates the device.
This may work, but might mess up how the GUI looks, depending on how the layout were created. You will have to account for that. Also, depending on how the activities are coded, you may notice that when screen orientation is changed, the values that were filled into any input boxes disappear. This also may have to be handled.

You can set the same data in your java code as well.
myActivity.setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE);
Other values on ActivityInfo will let you set it back to sensor driven or locked portrait. Personally, I like to set it to something in the Manifest as suggested in another answer to this question and then change it later using the above call in the Android SDK if there's a need.

In my OnCreate(Bundle), I generally do the following:
this.setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE);

You can specify the orientation of an activity in the manifest. See here.
<activity android:allowTaskReparenting=["true" | "false"]
...
android:screenOrientation=["unspecified" | "user" | "behind" |
"landscape" | "portrait" |
"sensor" | "nosensor"]
...
"adjustResize", "adjustPan"] >

In the manifest:
<activity android:name=".YourActivity"
android:screenOrientation="portrait"
android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize">
In your activity:
setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE);
setContentView(R.layout.your_activity_layout);

The following is the code which I used to display all activity in landscape mode:
<activity android:screenOrientation="landscape"
android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden"
android:name="abcActivty"/>

A quick and simple solution is for the AndroidManifest.xml file, add the following for each activity that you wish to force to landscape mode:
android:screenOrientation="landscape"

This works for Xamarin.Android. In OnCreate()
RequestedOrientation = Android.Content.PM.ScreenOrientation.Landscape;

That's it!! Long waiting for this fix.
I've an old Android issue about double-start an activity that required (programmatically) landscape mode: setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE)
Now Android make Landscape mode on start.

Arslan,
why do you want to force orientation pro grammatically, though there's already a way in manifest
<activity android:name=".youractivityName" android:screenOrientation="portrait" />

Add The Following Lines in Activity
You need to enter in every Activity
for landscape
android:screenOrientation="landscape"
tools:ignore="LockedOrientationActivity"
for portrait
android:screenOrientation="portrait"
tools:ignore="LockedOrientationActivity"
Here The Example of MainActivity
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
package="org.thcb.app">
<application
android:allowBackup="true"
android:icon="#mipmap/ic_launcher"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:roundIcon="#mipmap/ic_launcher_round"
android:supportsRtl="true"
android:theme="#style/AppTheme">
<activity android:name=".MainActivity"
android:screenOrientation="landscape"
tools:ignore="LockedOrientationActivity">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity android:name=".MainActivity2"
android:screenOrientation="portrait"
tools:ignore="LockedOrientationActivity">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
</application>
</manifest>

Doing it in code is is IMO wrong and even more so if you put it into the onCreate. Do it in the manifest and the "system" knows the orientation from the startup of the app. And this type of meta or top level "guidance" SHOULD be in the manifest. If you want to prove it to yourself set a break in the Activity's onCreate. If you do it in code there it will be called twice : it starts up in Portrait mode then is switched to Landscape. This does not happen if you do it in the manifest.

For Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and later, I needed to add these, besides the landscape value.
android:configChanges="keyboard|keyboardHidden|orientation|screenLayout|uiMode|screenSize|smallestScreenSize"
Using only keyboardHidden|orientation would still result in memory leaks and recreation of my activities when pressing the power button.

Use the ActivityInfo (android.content.pm.ActivityInfo) in your onCreate method before calling setLayout method like this
this.setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE);

use Only
android:screenOrientation="portrait"
tools:ignore="LockedOrientationActivity"

Press CTRL+F11 to rotate the screen.