Android – Disable ActionBar RTL Direction

androidandroid-layoutbidiright-to-left

Android 4.2 introduced RTL (BiDi) support, to start using it I just follow the instructions (android:supportsRtl attribute to the element in your manifest file and set it “true")

But then my ActionBar logo also changes orientation to the right (Logo is displayed on the right) which I don't want.
I do want to use the RTL features but keep the ActionBar oriented to the left…

In other word, how do I use the android:supportsRtl attribute without it changing the ActionBar direction on Android 4.2 when the language direction is RTL

Any suggestions ?

Best Answer

i had the same problem , only that i have a slidingMenu (AKA navigation drawer), so it got even weirder (meaning you click on the top right "up" button and show the drawer on the left...).

there are 2 possible solutions:

by code , in each activity:

if (VERSION.SDK_INT >= VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN_MR1)
    getWindow().getDecorView().setLayoutDirection(View.LAYOUT_DIRECTION_LTR);

by theme. edit your own customized theme, and add the correct line. example:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="@style/Theme.Sherlock.Light">
  <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/CustomActionBarStyle</item>
  <item name="android:actionBarStyle" tools:targetApi="honeycomb">@style/CustomActionBarStyle</item>
</style>

<style name="CustomActionBarStyle" parent="@style/Widget.Sherlock.Light.ActionBar">
  <item name="android:layoutDirection" tools:targetApi="jelly_bean_mr1">ltr</item>
</style>

Related Solutions

Android – How to customize the back button on ActionBar

The "up" affordance indicator is provided by a drawable specified in the homeAsUpIndicator attribute of the theme. To override it with your own custom version it would be something like this:

<style name="Theme.MyFancyTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo">
    <item name="android:homeAsUpIndicator">@drawable/my_fancy_up_indicator</item>
</style>

If you are supporting pre-3.0 with your application be sure you put this version of the custom theme in values-v11 or similar.

Android – How to RTL this android layout

Unfortunately, RTL layout support feature is supported on Android 4.2(API level 17) or above only. For the versions before, you can add a layout folder for RTL layout. For example in layout folder you put LTR version files layout and in layout-ldrtl folder you put RTL version files layout.

As of what to change to make RTL it depends on how much you would like to make it in RTL. because some parts of view will remain on the same side (like navigation bar) unless you customize it. Other things you will have to see and change what should be changed to make it cool view. For example on the LTR view lets say we have this:

<LinearLayout 
    android:layout_width="wrap_content" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:layout_gravity="left" 
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    android:paddingLeft="8dp"
    android:paddingRight="4dp">
</LinearLayout>

Then on the RTL view you will be somethig like this:

<LinearLayout 
    android:layout_width="wrap_content" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:layout_gravity="left" 
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    android:paddingLeft="4dp"
    android:paddingRight="8dp">
</LinearLayout>

As you can see we have changed the padding in the android:paddingLeft="4dp" and android:paddingRight="8dp" but we kept the android:layout_gravity="left" because it should be like that for this case (maybe on another view will be android:layout_gravity="right").

As real life example, you can compare the two views of the Android Quran app RTL audio_panel and LTR audio_panel.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Android – How to customize the back button on ActionBar

Android – How to RTL this android layout

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