Changing Locale within the app itself

Question

My users can change the Locale within the app (they may want to keep their phone settings in English but read the content of my app in French, Dutch or any other language ..

Answer 1

Through the original question is not exactly about the locale itself all other locale related questions are referencing to this one. That's why I wanted to clarify the issue here. I used this question as a starting point for my own locale switching code and found out that the method is not exactly correct. It works, but only until any configuration change (e.g. screen rotation) and only in that particular Activity. Playing with a code for a while I have ended up with the following approach:

I have extended android.app.Application and added the following code:

public class MyApplication extends Application
{
    private Locale locale = null;

    @Override
    public void onConfigurationChanged(Configuration newConfig)
    {
        super.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);
        if (locale != null)
        {
            newConfig.locale = locale;
            Locale.setDefault(locale);
            getBaseContext().getResources().updateConfiguration(newConfig, getBaseContext().getResources().getDisplayMetrics());
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void onCreate()
    {
        super.onCreate();

        SharedPreferences settings = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(this);

        Configuration config = getBaseContext().getResources().getConfiguration();

        String lang = settings.getString(getString(R.string.pref_locale), "");
        if (! "".equals(lang) && ! config.locale.getLanguage().equals(lang))
        {
            locale = new Locale(lang);
            Locale.setDefault(locale);
            config.locale = locale;
            getBaseContext().getResources().updateConfiguration(config, getBaseContext().getResources().getDisplayMetrics());
        }
    }
}

This code ensures that every Activity will have custom locale set and it will not be reset on rotation and other events.

I have also spent a lot of time trying to make the preference change to be applied immediately but didn't succeed: the language changed correctly on Activity restart, but number formats and other locale properties were not applied until full application restart.

Changes to AndroidManifest.xml

Don't forget to add android:configChanges="layoutDirection|locale" to every activity at AndroidManifest, as well as the android:name=".MyApplication" to the element.