Android Font in more then one langauge on single screen

Question

I am new to android. And i am implementing an application which will be in two langauge english and urdu. Basically there will be some text in arabic and its meaning will be in english or urdu based on the user selected language.

I want to change the font of arabic text, If i apply font in whole application it will change the look of urdu and english also. So is this will be fine to just apply font to each textview that contains arabic fonts using TypeFace or there is some better way to achieve this?

And also i want to know how to remove custom fonts in order to get default font back again through code. Sorry if this question is childish i just want to know what are the possibilities to do this.

Answer 1

for example if you want your application to support both English and Arabic strings (in addition to the default strings), you can simply create two additional resource directories called /res/values-en (for the English strings.xml) and /res/values-ar (for the Arabic strings.xml).

Within the strings.xml files, the resource names are the same.

For example, the /res/values-en/strings.xml file could look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<string name="hello">Hello in English!</string>
</resources>

Whereas, the /res/values-ar/strings.xml file would look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<string name="hello">مرحبا في اللغة الإنجليزية</string>
</resources>

also , the /res/values-ur_IN/strings.xml file would look like this for urdu:

ur_IN for india ur_PK for pakisthan

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<string name="hello">انگریزی میں خوش!!</string>
</resources>

A default layout file in the /res/layout directory that displays the string refers to the string by the variable name @string/hello, without regard to which language or directory the string resource is in.

The Android operating system determines which version of the string (French, English, or default) to load at runtime.A layout with a TextView control to display the string might look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent">
<TextView
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:text="@string/hello" >
</LinearLayout>

The string is accessed programmatically in the normal way:

String str = getString(R.string.hello);

For change the language you need to like that change lang..

btn_english.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                Locale locale = new Locale("en"); 
                  Locale.setDefault(locale);
                  Configuration config = new Configuration();
                  config.locale = locale;
                  getBaseContext().getResources().updateConfiguration(config, getBaseContext().getResources().getDisplayMetrics());
                  Toast.makeText(this, getResources().getString(R.string.lbl_langSelectEnglis), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

            }
        });



 btn_arbice.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                 Locale locale = new Locale("ar"); 
                  Locale.setDefault(locale);
                  Configuration config = new Configuration();
                  config.locale = locale;
                  getBaseContext().getResources().updateConfiguration(config, getBaseContext().getResources().getDisplayMetrics());
                  Toast.makeText(this, getResources().getString(R.string.lbl_langSelecURdu), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

            }
        });


 btn_urdu.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                Locale locale = new Locale("ur_IN"); 
                  Locale.setDefault(locale);
                  Configuration config = new Configuration();
                  config.locale = locale;
                  getBaseContext().getResources().updateConfiguration(config, getBaseContext().getResources().getDisplayMetrics());
                  Toast.makeText(HomeActivity.this, getResources().getString(R.string.lbl_langSelectEnglis), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

            }
        });

Also see this example for single screen

Custom fonts for TextView based on languages inside String

String paragraph = "hey what's up ضعيف"; int NO_FLAG = 0; Bidi bidi = new Bidi(paragraph, NO_FLAG); int runCount = bidi.getRunCount(); for (int i = 0; i < runCount; i++) { String ltrtl = bidi.getRunLevel(i) % 2 == 0 ? "ltr" : "rtl"; String subString = paragraph.substring(bidi.getRunStart(i), bidi.getRunLimit(i)); Log.d(">>bidi:" + i, subString+" is "+ltrtl); }

prints:

hey what's up is ltr

ضعيف is rtl

So now one can easily build TypefaceSpan or MetricAffectingSpan based on language direction like this:

SpannableString spanString = new SpannableString(paragraph);
for (int i = 0; i < runCount; i++) {
    Object span = bidi.getRunLevel(i) % 2 == 0 ? ltrFontSpan : rtlFontSpan;
    spanString.setSpan(span, bidi.getRunStart(i), bidi.getRunLimit(i), Spanned.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE); 
}
textView.setText(spanString);