Multiple language support in Android

Some users expect to use the application in the local language so today I have created a demo application for support multiple languages in Android application. In Android, support of multiple language is quite simple.

Here is a screen shot of the project directory structure.

In this image you can see there are two values folder 

1. values
2. values-de

In both folders there is same name file strings.xml. The first values folder is for support default language for the application. values-de is for support German language in which de indicates that this is the resource for Gernan language.There are some predefined codes which you can refer from below tables.

Locale Code	Language / Country	Location of strings.xml	Location of flag.png
Default	English / United Kingdom	res/values/	res/drawable/
de-rDE	German / Germany	res/values-de/	res/drawable-de-rDE/
fr-rFR	French / France	res/values-fr/	res/drawable-fr-rFR/
fr-rCA	French / Canada	res/values-fr/	res/drawable-fr-rCA/
en-rCA	English / Canada	(res/values/)	res/drawable-en-rCA/
ja-rJP	Japanese / Japan	res/values-ja/	res/drawable-ja-rJP/
en-rUS	English / United States	(res/values/)	res/drawable-en-rUS/

Here is my layout file 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

    android:layout_width="fill_parent"

    android:layout_height="fill_parent"

    >

    <TextView

        android:id="@+id/text"

        android:layout_width="fill_parent"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"

        android:text="@string/text" />

  

    <Button

        android:id="@+id/btnChangeLanguage"

        android:layout_width="fill_parent"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"

        android:text="@string/select_language"

        android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"

        />

</RelativeLayout>

In this layout there is a one Button to open the list of the languages and Text-view to display text in the language which user selects from the list.

Here I have created two strings.xml files. One is for English and second is for German.

Strings.xml in English language

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>

    <string name="app_name">MultiLanguage</string>

    <string name="select_language">Select Language</string>

    <string name="text">Welcome! this is the english language</string>

</resources> 

Strings.xml in German language

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>

    <string name="text">Herzlich Willkommen! dies ist die Sprache Englisch</string>

    <string name="select_language">Wählen Sie Sprache</string>

</resources>

Here is my Main.java activity 

package com.example.android.multilanguage;

import java.util.Locale;

import android.app.Activity;

import android.content.Intent;

import android.content.res.Configuration;

import android.os.Bundle;

import android.view.View;

import android.view.View.OnClickListener;

import android.widget.Button;

public class Main extends Activity {

  Button btnChangeLanguage;

 private static final  int REQUEST_CHANGE_LANGUAGE = 1;

 @Override

    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

        setContentView(R.layout.main);

      

        btnChangeLanguage = (Button)findViewById(R.id.btnChangeLanguage);

        btnChangeLanguage.setOnClickListener(onChangeLanguageButtonListener);

    }

  

    OnClickListener onChangeLanguageButtonListener = new OnClickListener() {

    public void onClick(View v) {

         startActivityForResult(new Intent(Main.this, Languages.class), REQUEST_CHANGE_LANGUAGE);

  }

 };

  

   @Override

   protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data){

     super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);

     if(resultCode == RESULT_OK && requestCode == REQUEST_CHANGE_LANGUAGE) {

      Configuration c = new Configuration(getResources().getConfiguration());

      String language = data.getStringExtra("language");

      if(language.equals("English")) {

       c.locale = Locale.ENGLISH;

      }else if(language.equals("German")) {

       c.locale = Locale.GERMAN;

      }

      getResources().updateConfiguration(c, getResources().getDisplayMetrics());

      Intent intent = getIntent();

      overridePendingTransition(0, 0);

      intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_ANIMATION);

      finish();

      overridePendingTransition(0, 0);

      startActivity(intent);

     }

   }

}

Here is my List-Activity Languages .java in which I am displaying list of languages which I want to support in my application.Currently I have supported for English and German languages.

package com.example.android.multilanguage;

import android.app.ListActivity;

import android.content.Intent;

import android.os.Bundle;

import android.view.View;

import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;

import android.widget.ListView;

public class Languages extends ListActivity{

 String[] arrLanguages = new String[]{"English", "German"};

 @Override

 protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

  super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

  setListAdapter(new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1, arrLanguages));

 }

      @Override

 protected void onListItemClick(ListView l, View v, int position, long id) {

  super.onListItemClick(l, v, position, id);

  setResult(RESULT_OK, new Intent().putExtra("language", arrLanguages[position]));

  finish();

 }

}

You can refer the Developer site for study in details for support multiple languages in Android application.