Setting `android:screenOrientation` via `--orientation` has no effect when targeting API 31

[misl6]

Checklist

• the issue is indeed a bug and not a support request
• issue doesn't already exist: https://github.com/kivy/python-for-android/issues
• I have a short, runnable example that reproduces the issue
• I reproduced the problem with the latest development version (p4a.branch = develop)
• I used the grave accent (aka backticks) to format code or logs when appropriated

Versions

• Python: Any
• OS: Any
• Kivy: Any
• Cython: Any
• OpenJDK: Any

Description

python-for-android made possible to set the activity android:screenOrientation via --orientation argument.
Unfortunately, when targeting API 31 and above, on Android 12 and above, this attribute is ignored, as the activity will run in multi-window mode.

From Android Docs:

android:screenOrientation
The orientation of the activity's display on the device. The system ignores this attribute if the activity is running in multi-window mode.

On Android 12, the multi-window mode is the standard behavior, and additionally:

On large screens (sw >= 600dp), the platform supports all apps in multi-window mode regardless of app configuration. If resizeableActivity="false", the app is put into compatibility mode when necessary to accommodate display dimensions.

On small screens (sw < 600dp), the system checks an activity’s minWidth and minHeight to determine whether the activity can run in multi-window mode. If resizeableActivity="false", the app is prevented from running in multi‑window mode regardless of minimum width and height.

So, resizeableActivity="false"might be great to handle some specific configurations, but is not meant to be a solution for that.
Also, users may want to take advantage of such a feature. (Since the vastly majority of Apps now support multi-window mode)

But we still want to force a specific orientation, when the app is not in multi-window mode:

Setting KIVY_ORIENTATION to a supported SDL configuration, (Portrait, LandscapeRight, ...) will force the App to keep the selected orientation, even if the device gets rotated.

So, as a quick workaround:

import os

os.environ["KIVY_ORIENTATION"] = "Portrait"

In a near future:
We should advise users that --orientation has no effect anymore, and we should think about a (cross-platform?) migration plan.

[RobertFlatt]

Its a little more complicated. I tested on Pixel5, Android13, api 31

• Buildozer.spec orientation sets the presplash orientation, and sets the app orientation to "all".
• os.environ["KIVY_ORIENTATION"] sets the app orientation, but does not set the presplash orientation.
• "LandscapeRight" and "LandscapeLeft" are switched according these definitions https://wiki.libsdl.org/SDL2/SDL_HINT_ORIENTATIONS
• "PortraitUpsideDown" is interpreted as "Portrait"
• Multiple orientations are a white space separated list.
• The special case "All" is surprisingly specified with "LandscapeLeft Portrait" or "LandscapeRight Portrait" (or no specification).
• "All" behavior includes the otherwise unavailable "PortraitUpsideDown"

I updated this https://github.com/Android-for-Python/Android-for-Python-Users#orientation to reflect the issue.

[misl6]

Fixed via #2739

[sunnyking]

FYI, we had this issue with target api 30 as well as running on android 10

# Our buildozer.spec excerpts

# (int) Target Android API, should be as high as possible.
android.api = 30

# (str) Supported orientation (one of landscape, sensorLandscape, portrait or all)
orientation = portrait

We can confirm that p4a version 2023.01.28 fixed this issue for us.