Android - RTL layout becomes LTR after inflation

Question

I have a custom Action Bar XML layout file in my Android project:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:gravity="center"
    android:layoutDirection="rtl"
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    android:textDirection="rtl">

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/tv_name"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:text="Some Text"
        android:textColor="@color/white" />

</LinearLayout>

Now if try to load and display this Action Bar like this:

getSupportActionBar().setDisplayOptions(ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_CUSTOM);
getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowCustomEnabled(true);
getSupportActionBar().setCustomView(R.id.custom_action_bar);

The layout gets loaded as RTL and text direction is RTL, and everything works fine, but I wanted to make the title dynamic so I decided to inflate the layout file into a View, and change the text of the TextView like this:

View customActionBar = LayoutInflater.from(this)
            .inflate(R.layout.custom_action_bar, null);
TextView actionBarTitle = customActionBar.findViewById(R.id.tv_name);
actionBarTitle.setText("Any Text");
getSupportActionBar().setDisplayOptions(ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_CUSTOM);
getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowCustomEnabled(true);
getSupportActionBar().setCustomView(customActionBar);

But then the layout and text direction become LTR. I tried to set the direction to RTL programmatically, and that didn't work too.

What is wrong here? What should I do to fix it?

Answer 1

You need to add android:supportRtl="true" in the AndroidManifest.xml to have rtl layout