android:gravity="start" in RTL aligns the text to left not right

Question

While testing my layout on a device with RTL language (Arabic) I found that TextView with gravity:start keeps aligning the text to the left instead of right ! I tried android:textAlignment="viewStart" and it works correctly but due to API reqs I didn't depend on it.

my code (I mean the first textview in my code) :

<LinearLayout
android:orientation="horizontal"
android:gravity="center_vertical"
>

<TextView
    android:text="Size"
    android:gravity="start"
    android:layout_weight="1"
    android:layout_width="0dp"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

<LinearLayout android:gravity="center" android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content">
    <TextView
        android:text="000"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="subtext"/>
</LinearLayout></LinearLayout>

I mean I don't want to use it as you see I'm targeting API 15 not 17 — Bialy, May 03 '16 at 05:52
@Bialy did you solved your problem for api 17 and above, in fact I'm facing the same, when characters are arabic the text respects the gravity start but when the texts are a-zA-Z it doesn't. — Pedro Teran, Sep 07 '16 at 19:37
You can either disable the RTL by setting android:layoutDirection="ltr" in the layout file .. or another workaround by inserting an empty view like I said in the last answer here. — Bialy, Sep 09 '16 at 12:51
Is this a known bug? It's happening to me with minSdkVersion 18 — starkej2, Feb 22 '17 at 20:37

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

3

For Full support or RTL you have to target api 17

If you are targeting your app to Android 4.2 (the app's targetSdkVersion or minSdkVersion is 17 or higher), then you should use “start” and “end” instead of “left” and “right”. For example

Native RTL support in Android 4.2

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

1
1

answered May 03 '16 at 05:54

N J

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Great to know that. Still I don't understand why "gravity" does not work properly even on a device running android 4.4.4 ? – Bialy May 03 '16 at 05:58
1

have you set `android:supportsRtl="true"` to the ` ` element in your manifest file. – N J May 03 '16 at 06:17

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 03 '16 at 06:09

My current workaround for this if any one is interested in the future is adding an empty view between the two elements and making it fill the empty space between them (weight = 1) so they get aligned properly. Still I don't understand that abnormal behavior of gravity="start"

android:gravity="start" in RTL aligns the text to left not right

2 Answers2

Native RTL support in Android 4.2