I have a tab-based Android app. Currently, it does not support landscape mode – the one and only activity swallows all orientation changes. Now, a user asks that I support landscape for the sake of the hardware keyboard convenience.
On one hand, it makes sense. On the other, the default behavior of a tab host is rotating the tab strip; when it does, it takes a good one third of the precious screen space for the tabs alone. So I lose a lot of real estate.
Are there any common ways out of this conundrum? As far as as I can see, a vertical tab strip is not an option.
I suggest following the technique discussed in Timores’s answer to android:orientation="vertical" does not work for TabWidget, where he describes how to set up the TabHost to display the tabs on the left of the screen, with tabs vertically stacked.