Android - Handle Screen Orientation

Question

I'm currently working on an Android application that have different behaviors according to the screen orientation.

I'm using getWindowManager().getDefaultDisplay().getRotation() to get the screen orientation in the onCreate() method and manage from there.

Basically, my problem is that I need a control over the orientation. In landscape mode, when the user decides it, the application must switch to portrait mode, and stays like that, but only until the use goes to portrait mode, and then again to landscape.

I'm using setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_PORTRAIT) to change the orientation when in Landscape. The problem is, using this, I can not go back to landscape. If I use setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_UNSPECIFIED) in onCreate(), the problem is that is switches back to landscape mode after a few seconds (since the screen is still in landscape).

Is there any other way to manage this? Basically, is there a way to catch the screen orientation change with a listner (or anywhere else than in onCreate, since it's not called when the views is locked in portrait mode)? I can't find anything about that...

Any idea is welcome!

Thanks!

Answer 1

Why not try creating two layouts, one in layout-land and one in layout-port. These will automatically be applied when the device orientation changes.

Inside each of these, create two distinct child layouts one for a portrait view, and one for a landscape view and change the visibility of these to reflect the user's preference.

So, you don't need to handle the rotation change at all, let Android manage that for you, and you just manage the user override.