Add portrait/landscape orientation "hardware" button on Android

[Algeria Horan]

I solved the problem of the lack of a portrait/landscape hardware button on
Android.

On an iPad iOS tablet, if you want to lock the screen to portrait or to
landscape mode, you just flip a configurable hardware button, but that
portrait/landscape mode lock doesn't exist on my Android phone.

On my Android 4.3 phone out of the box, all I can do is enable or disable
screen rotation.

Some programs, such as VLC, have a software lock, so that when you're
watching a video in bed, holding the phone above or to the side, the mode
doesn't keep flipping accidentally from portrait to landscape as you change
positions.

However, other programs, such as the Youtube app (and even the far better
youtube replacement app, NewPipe) don't have this software lock; so the
screen flips annoying from landscape to portrait mode as you move the
phone.

Luckily, there's a free KISS app designed to solve this problem:
* Rotation Lock+Landscape (org.cmotc.tools.rotationlockpp)
* https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.cmotc.tools.rotationlockpp

It's an app that is so simple, there is no user interface; you simply hit
the button to toggle the mode in series to one of these 3 possible modes:
a. Portrait Orientation Locked
b. Landscape Orientation Locked
c. Orientation Unlocked

Note: In addition, I use Nova free as my launcher, which can lock the
desktop screen in portrait mode, so that I have the best of all worlds:

a. I lock the desktop screen to portrait mode using Nova free settings
b. I turn on the Android settings > display > auto rotate screen
c. When I watch a video in bed, I press "Rotation Lock+Landscape"

These three actions (two of which you normally set only once) work fine in
*all* apps to lock them to landscape mode when watching videos in
situations where the orientation changes frequently (such as when holding a
video while watching youtube/newpipe videos in bed).

This solution is even better than the hardware button on my iOS iPad,
simply because the iOS hardware button doesn't allow you to have one mode
for the desktop and a different mode for the apps, although it's not as
annoying on a typical tablet simply because the aspect ratio isn't as
different between the two modes as it is on a typical phone.

[Roger Mills]

Looks interesting. How do you install it - it doesn't appear to be in
Play Store?

--
Cheers,
Roger
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[Algeria Horan]

Roger Mills wrote:

> Looks interesting. How do you install it - it doesn't appear to be in
> Play Store?

I don't have a Google Play account and F-Droid doesn't need an account, so
I only used the one on the F-Droid repository, which worked for me:

* Rotation Lock+Landscape (org.cmotc.tools.rotationlockpp)
* https://f-droid.org/wiki/page/org.cmotc.tools.rotationlockpp

What I love is that the app is so simple that it just is an icon that has
no GUI; it just pops up an ephemeral notification that toggles between the
three modes, which seem to be, in my words, these three:
a. Override whatever the system setting is to set it to landscape
b. Override whatever the system setting is to set it to portrait
c. Go back to whatever the system is set to (enable or disable rotation)

To help those out who don't want to use F-Droid, I just googled for "Free
Rotation Lock Android", where I found a bunch of similar-sounding apps on
Google Play which seem to do (essentially?) the same thing...

Rotation Locker By madmack
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.devasque.rotationlocker

Set Orientation By Eyes-Free Project
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.googlecode.eyesfree.setorientation

Lock Screen Rotation By Alessandro Digilio
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=it.ale32thebest.lockscreenrotation

Rotation Lock Adaptive (Free) By MICGOOWARE
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ui.robot.rotate

Stay Still (Rotation Lock) By Andrew Giang
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrewgiang.staystill

etc.

If you try any of these Google Play apps, please let others know your
results so that they can all benefit, since the *expense* of freeware is in
the effort of finding the good ones.