Activity orientation changes automatically on Android

Question

I\'m developing a mobile application based on Android with minSdkVersion=15. I would like to support both orientations for tablets and only portrait for smartph

Answer 1

Here's a good way using resources and size qualifiers.

Put this bool resource in res/values as bools.xml or whatever (file names don't matter here):

    true

Put this one in res/values-sw600dp and res/values-xlarge:

    false

See this supplemental answer for help adding these directories and files in Android Studio.

Then, in the onCreate method of your Activities you can do this:

if(getResources().getBoolean(R.bool.portrait_only)){
    setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_PORTRAIT);
}

Devices that are more than 600 dp in the smallest width direction, or x-large on pre-Android 3.2 devices (tablets, basically) will behave like normal, based on sensor and user-locked rotation, etc. Everything else (phones, pretty much) will be portrait only.

Source: Original answer