Device Orientation Change doesnt change layout

Question

I have alternative layouts in my layout-normal-land and layout-normal-port folders and they are correctly invoked by the system according to if I hold the device in land or port at start. My problem is, when I rotate the device AFTER I have launched the app, it tries to somehow adapt the already displayed view to the new situation, creating a mess. How can I tell the system it should switch to the alternate layout during execution?

Have been experimenting around and found that when I dont have android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation" , oncreate gets called again, which gives the correct layout, but its not what I want to have. I dont think this is normal, is it? Maybe a question of bug in Android (2.3.3.)?

Answer 1

By including

android:configChanges="orientation"

in your manifest you are saying you want to handle orientation changes yourself. You should remove it if you want the system to handle it for you.

The automatic handling works extremely well. You should only override it if you have a specific reason for doing so.

In normal operation (without the above manifest entry), an orientation switch causes the current activity to be closed and then re-opened in its new orientation reloading all resources and layouts from the currently active resource folders. The process follows what is known as the "Activity Lifecycle".

If you include the above manifest entry, you are saying, "I will handle all changes myself. Do not close my activity" so it is then your responsibility to remove all unwanted layouts from the activity and replace them with the layouts you now require for the current orientation.