Question

I am writing an Android app with three tabs, two designed in portrait mode, and one (a mini-spreadsheet) in landscape mode. The issue is with the function of the tab-set. When I set the orientation in the landscape tab, the tabs themselves move over and take up the top of the screen. This takes up a large portion of the screen space, and is confusing to the user.

Here is my questions: How do I lock the tabs themselves in place, so they stay in the same position when in landscape mode; in landscape mode this would be the left side of the screen.

Another way of approaching the question: Is there a way to rotate a layout inside of a tab without effecting the entire tab-set?

Answer 1

I found a solution outside of the tab-set. The following link discusses multiple solutions for displaying Vertical text:

Vertical (rotated) label in Android

I went with “CustomTextView” by PocketMagic which can be found here: http://www.pocketmagic.net/?p=1625

With the ability to display vertical text, I can keep the entire tab-set locked in Portrait mode.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

-cc