How to refresh activity after changing language Locale inside application

Question

My application users can change the language from the app s settings  Is it possible to change the language inside the application without having effect to general language settings    This question of stackoverflow is very useful to me and i have tried it  After changing language newly created activities display with changed new language  but current activity and previously created activities which are in pause state are not updated How to update activities    I have also spent a lot of time trying to make the preference change to be applied immediately but didn t succeed  When application is restarted  all activities created again  so now language changed correctly   android configChanges  locale     also added in manifest for all activities  and also support all screen  Currently I have not done any thing in activity s onResume   method  Is there any way to refresh or update activity  without finish and starting again    Am I missing something to do in onResume   method

User · Answer

Call this method to change app locale   public void settingLocale Context context  String language         Locale locale       Configuration config   new Configuration          if language equals LANGUAGE ENGLISH              locale   new Locale  en             Locale setDefault locale            config locale   locale        else if language equals LANGUAGE ARABIC             locale   new Locale  hi             Locale setDefault locale            config locale   locale              context getResources   updateConfiguration config  null           Here again set the text on view to reflect locale change         and it will pick resource from new locale      tv1 setText R string one     tv1 is textview in my activity      Note   Put your strings in value and values- folder

User · Answer

If I imagined that you set android configChanges in manifest xml and create several directory for several language such as  values-fr OR values-nl  I could suggest this code In Activity class     Override public void onCreate Bundle savedInstanceState        super onCreate savedInstanceState       setContentView R layout main        Button btn    Button  findViewById R id btn       btn setOnClickListener new OnClickListener               Override         public void onClick View v                   change language by onclick a button              Configuration newConfig   new Configuration                 newConfig locale   Locale FRENCH               onConfigurationChanged newConfig                         Override public void onConfigurationChanged Configuration newConfig        super onConfigurationChanged newConfig        getBaseContext   getResources   updateConfiguration newConfig  getBaseContext   getResources   getDisplayMetrics         setContentView R layout main       setTitle R string app name           Checks the active language     if  newConfig locale    Locale ENGLISH            Toast makeText this   English   Toast LENGTH SHORT  show          else if  newConfig locale    Locale FRENCH           Toast makeText this   French   Toast LENGTH SHORT  show              I tested this code  It is correct

User · Answer

Since the string resources will have already been loaded for the existing locale  the activities already opened will not automatically display using strings from the new locale  The only way to solve this is to reload all of the strings and set them again on the views  Typically  a call to setContentView      will be able to cover this  depending on your Activity structure   but of course it has the side-effect of losing any view state you had   public void onResume         super onResume                if  localeHasChanged            setContentView R layout xxx                     You will probably not want to reload the views every single time in onResume    but only when the locale has changed  Checking when to update the views  i e  localeHasChanged  is a matter of propagating the locale change event to the previous activities  This could be done in many ways  such as using static singleton-esque state or persisting this event to storage   You could also try to minimise the number of Activities that can be opened when you can change the locale  e g  by having the selection be at one of the initial screens

User · Answer

I solved my problem with this code  public void setLocale String lang             myLocale   new Locale lang           Resources res   getResources            DisplayMetrics dm   res getDisplayMetrics            Configuration conf   res getConfiguration            conf locale   myLocale          res updateConfiguration conf  dm            onConfigurationChanged conf                 Override     public void onConfigurationChanged Configuration newConfig                 iv setImageDrawable getResources   getDrawable R drawable keyboard            greet setText R string greet           textView1 setText R string langselection            super onConfigurationChanged newConfig

User · Answer

You can use recreate    to restart your activity when Language change   I am using following code to restart activity when language change   SharedPreferences settings   PreferenceManager getDefaultSharedPreferences this   Configuration config   getBaseContext   getResources   getConfiguration     String lang   settings getString  lang list         if       equals lang   amp  amp    config locale getLanguage   equals lang           recreate       this is used for recreate activity       Locale locale   new Locale lang         Locale setDefault locale         config locale   locale        getBaseContext   getResources   updateConfiguration config  getBaseContext   getResources   getDisplayMetrics

User · Answer

For Android 4 2  API 17   you need to use android configChanges  locale layoutDirection  in your AndroidManifest xml  See onConfigurationchanged is not called over jellybean 4 2 1

User · Answer

This approach will work on all API level device    Use Base Activity for attachBaseContext to set the locale language and extend this activity for all activities  open class  BaseAppCompactActivity     AppCompatActivity          override fun attachBaseContext newBase  Context            super attachBaseContext LocaleHelper onAttach newBase                  override fun onCreate savedInstanceState  Bundle             super onCreate savedInstanceState                      Use Application attachBaseContext and onConfigurationChanged to set the locale language  public class MyApplication extends Application       private static MyApplication application        Override     public void onCreate             super onCreate               public static MyApplication getApplication             return application                        overide to change local sothat language can be chnaged from android device  nogaut and above              Override     protected void attachBaseContext Context base            super attachBaseContext LocaleHelper INSTANCE onAttach base                Override     public void onConfigurationChanged Configuration newConfig            setLanguageFromNewConfig newConfig           super onConfigurationChanged newConfig                   also handle chnage  language if  device language chnaged         private void setLanguageFromNewConfig Configuration newConfig           Prefs putSaveLocaleLanguage this   selectedLocaleLanguage            LocaleHelper INSTANCE onAttach this          Use Locale Helper  for handling language changes  this approach work on all device   object LocaleHelper       private var defaultLanguage   String   KycUtility KYC LANGUAGE ENGLISH languageCode      fun onAttach context  Context  defaultLanguage  String   Context           return setLocale context  defaultLanguage               fun setLocale context  Context  language  String   Context           return if  Build VERSION SDK INT  gt   Build VERSION CODES N                updateResources context  language            else updateResourcesLegacy context  language                TargetApi Build VERSION CODES N      private fun updateResources context  Context  language  String   Context           val locale   Locale language          Locale setDefault locale           val configuration   context getResources   getConfiguration           configuration setLocale locale          configuration setLayoutDirection locale           return context createConfigurationContext configuration             private fun updateResourcesLegacy context  Context  language  String   Context           val locale   Locale language          Locale setDefault locale           val resources   context getResources            val configuration   resources getConfiguration           configuration locale   locale         if  Build VERSION SDK INT  gt   Build VERSION CODES JELLY BEAN MR1                configuration setLayoutDirection locale                    resources updateConfiguration configuration  resources getDisplayMetrics            return context

User · Answer

After changing language newly created activities display with changed new language  but current activity and previously created activities which are in pause state are not updated How to update activities     Pre API 11  Honeycomb   the simplest way to make the existing activities to be displayed in new language is to restart it  In this way you don t bother to reload each resources by yourself   private void restartActivity         Intent intent   getIntent        finish        startActivity intent       Register an OnSharedPreferenceChangeListener  in its onShredPreferenceChanged    invoke restartActivity   if language preference was changed  In my example  only the PreferenceActivity is restarted  but you should be able to restart other activities on activity resume by setting a flag   Update  thanks  stackunderflow   As of API 11  Honeycomb  you should use recreate   instead of restartActivity     public class PreferenceActivity extends android preference PreferenceActivity implements         OnSharedPreferenceChangeListener                     Override     public void onSharedPreferenceChanged SharedPreferences sharedPreferences  String key            if  key equals  pref language                    Application  getApplication    setLocale                restartActivity                          Override     protected void onCreate Bundle savedInstanceState            super onCreate savedInstanceState           addPreferencesFromResource R xml preferences           getPreferenceScreen   getSharedPreferences   registerOnSharedPreferenceChangeListener this               Override     protected void onStop             super onStop            getPreferenceScreen   getSharedPreferences   unregisterOnSharedPreferenceChangeListener this             I have a blog post on this topic with more detail  but it s in Chinese  The full source code is on github  PreferenceActivity java

User · Answer

The way we have done it was using Broadcasts    Send the broadcast every time the user changes language Register the broadcast receiver in the AppActivity onCreate   and unregister in AppActivity onDestroy   In BroadcastReceiver onReceive   just restart the activity    AppActivity is the parent activity which all other activities subclass     Below is the snippet from my code  not tested outside the project  but should give you a nice idea   When the user changes the language  sendBroadcast new Intent  Language changed       And in the parent activity  public class AppActivity extends Activity                   The receiver that will handle the change of the language              private BroadcastReceiver mLangaugeChangedReceiver        Override     protected void onCreate final Bundle savedInstanceState            super onCreate savedInstanceState                              Other code here                            Define receiver         mLangaugeChangedReceiver   new BroadcastReceiver                   Override             public void onReceive final Context context  final Intent intent                    startActivity getIntent                     finish                                         Register receiver         registerReceiver mLangaugeChangedReceiver  new IntentFilter  Language changed                 Override     protected void onDestroy             super onDestroy                               Other cleanup code here                            Unregister receiver         if  mLangaugeChangedReceiver    null                try                   unregisterReceiver mLangaugeChangedReceiver                   mLangaugeChangedReceiver   null                catch  final Exception e                         This will also refresh the activity which changed the language  if it subclasses the above activity    This will make you lose any data  but if it is important you should already have taken care of this using Actvity onSaveInstanceState   and Actvity onRestoreInstanceState    or similar    Let me know your thoughts about this   Cheers

[android] How to refresh activity after changing language (Locale) inside application

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