Way to get localized label name from PackageManager

Question

I am using PackageManager.getApplicationLabel(ApplicationInfo) to get the application name. But this name may change according to the device locale configuration and application resource string.

So I wonder if there is any convenient way to get a specified localized label (or return null if not exist)? Such as PackageManager.getApplicationLabel(ApplicationInfo info, Locale prefereLocale)?

Answer 1

First of all, lets describe order of actions to obtain the label:

1. Obtain ApplicationInfo (application info has public int labelRes - resource id of the label);
2. Obtain application resources to retrieve labelRes from it - using getResourcesForApplication();
3. Set necessary locale to obtained Resources and retrieve string labelRes (please note, that I haven't mentioned nonLocalizedLabel which should be checked before doing all above items);

The code itself is pretty simple (e.g. code from activity class):

    PackageManager pm = getPackageManager();
    try {
        ApplicationInfo galleryInfo = pm.getApplicationInfo("com.android.gallery3d", PackageManager.GET_META_DATA);

        if (null != galleryInfo) {
            final String label = String.valueOf(pm.getApplicationLabel(galleryInfo));

            Log.w(TAG, "Current app label is " + label);

            final Configuration config = new Configuration();

            config.locale = new Locale("ru");

            final Resources galleryRes = pm.getResourcesForApplication("com.android.gallery3d");

            galleryRes.updateConfiguration(config, getBaseContext().getResources().getDisplayMetrics());

            final String localizedLabel = galleryRes.getString(galleryInfo.labelRes);

            Log.w(TAG, "Localized app label is " + localizedLabel);
        }
    } catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {
        Log.e(TAG, "Failed to obtain app info!");
    }

Produces the following output (second string label is in Russian locale which I set from code - 'ru'):

08-16 19:23:04.425: WARN/MyActivity(29122): Current app label is Gallery
08-16 19:23:04.425: WARN/MyActivity(29122): Localized app label is Галерея