Question

Could I force changing the view’s orientation in order to test how the layout appears or it is not possible to test this behavior on virtual device.

Under forcing it, I mean for example on click event to change from one to another screen orientation and inverse.

Answer 1

Ctrl+F11 will switch the screen orientation, but when it come to coding the orientation to change you have a couple of options:

• Hardcode the Activity to be a given orientation. Which is useful when you want to force the user to use a specific orientation only.
• Set the Activity to allow either orientation and let the user decide.

Each of these is useful in their own scenarios. For example, viewing a graph that will only be useful in landscape should be hardcoded, but scrolling through a list could allow a user to pick which was more comfortable for them.

How to set the mode:

• In Eclipse go to the AndroidManifest->Application Tab, Select the
  Activity you want to edit and set the Screen Orientation
  directly.
• In AndroidManifest.xml:
  <activity android:screenOrientation="[fill in preference here]" />
• In code:
  Activity.setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_[type])
• To get the current orientation in code:
  Activity.getRequestedOrientation()

An explanation of the different modes can be found here: Screen Orientation Types | Activity

So, if you want to force a change on a screen based on user input, you can all you need to do is set the orientation type in code.