How can I use a portrait layout in a Dialog Activity, when screenOrientation is set to landscape in the Manifest?

Question

I have an activity, let's call it HomeActivity, whose screenOrientation has been set to landscape in the manifest file.

Clicking on a button in the HomeActivity presents a Dialog Activity which floats over HomeActivity.

There is a portrait version and a landscape version for the layout that is to be displayed in this dialog, but for this scenario, only the portrait version should be displayed.

In the onCreate() method of the Dialog Activity, I've requested Portrait Orientation but this causes both the dialog and the HomeActivity behind to rotate to portrait mode. I do not want this.

Is there a way to set the orientation of the top most activity without affecting the orientation of the "behind" activity?

Thanks for your help?

Answer 1

Orientation is system-wide property so it can only be landscape or portrait at the one time. This includes all displayed activities (including dialog), status bar and buttons. You have to display HomeActivity and Dialog Activity with the same orientation.

Also, forcing Activity orientation in the manifest is a bad practice in general.