Question

I know this question was already asked, but mine is a little different:

I have 2 different layout files for my game; one for portrait mode and one for landscape. When I rotate the screen, the onCreate method restarts my game (creates all the elements again). I don´t want this to happen, so I wrote this line in the manifest:

android:configChanges="orientation"

It works, onCreate is not called, but the new layout is not being showed properly!

I tried to put the following code in my Activity, but it just keeps doing weird things:

@Override
public void onConfigurationChanged(Configuration newConfig) {
  super.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);
  setContentView(R.layout.gameview);
}

how can I fix this?
thanx guys

Answer 1

First of all understand how orientation changing in android works:

1. By default activity restarts on orientation changed event (and goes throw onCreate).

2. If you write android:configChanges="orientation" in manifest – it means it will not be recreated, but just remeasure and redraw view tree.

Comments about your code:

• If you have different layout for different orientations – you have to recreate activity on orientation changed.
• Method setContentView should called just once per activity lifecycle.

General way to handle this situation is:

1. Save game state in method onSaveInstanceState
2. In onCreate method restore game state if it is supplied (savedInstanceState param is not null).
3. Remove listening of configuration changing from manifest.