Question

Is there a way to make an application completely ignore a screen orientation change?

Answer 1

It is possible, quite easily, to override the default behavior and forbid a screen orientation change when the keyboard is open/closed.

Modifying the manifest

Open the manifest, switch to the Application tab and select the desired Activity you wish to override for the orientation change behavior.

1. Within Attributes you need to change two fields:
   Screen orientation: select either portrait or landscape – whichever is desired. This will be the default layout.

2. Select events for Config changes you wish to override:
   In this case these are keyboardHidden and orientation.

Modifying the Activity implementation

Now you need to override a single function within desired Activity.

Just add the function below to your Activity’s class.

@Override
public void onConfigurationChanged(Configuration newConfig) {
    super.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);
}

This is the default implementation if using the Source->Override/Implement Methods
menu option.

That’s it! Now your orientation will always be kept.

Remember that this setting is per Activity – so you need to repeat this step for each Activity you wish to forbid the orientation change!

(Based on SDK 1.1)