Android RTL issue in API 24 and higher on locale change

Question

I was trying to change locale of app at runtime. It is working fine in Andorid below API level 24. But in API level 24 or greater the layout direction is not changing accord

Answer 1

The problem seems to be that it doesn't reflect layout direction changes at first update. I solved the problem by overriding the onAttachedToWindow method of Activity like below:

@Override
public void onAttachedToWindow() {
    super.onAttachedToWindow();
    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN_MR1) {
        getWindow().getDecorView().setLayoutDirection(
                "ur".equals(LocaleHelper.getLanguage(this)) ?
                View.LAYOUT_DIRECTION_RTL : View.LAYOUT_DIRECTION_LTR);
    }
}

Tested on API 25 and it's working fine. Be careful though I'm not sure about any side effects for this approach at this moment. Nevertheless, I think it is what you are looking for.

I'll also update the blog post to reflect more elegant, generic code for this.