What's the different between drawableLeft and drawableStart in EditText?

Question

At first I thought drawableStart would auto change the icon's location when I changed system language to Arabic, which is a language written from right to left. But when I did that, nothing happened. So I guess they are the same?

Answer 1

I'm not sure the answer above is correct. From my experimentation, the icon always ends up in the same place unless you change the language AND enable RTL support.

drawableStart and drawableEnd only start switching sides when you enable RTL support in API Level 17 and above.

Change all of your app's "left/right" layout properties to new "start/end" equivalents.

• If you are targeting your app to Android 4.2 (the app's targetSdkVersion or minSdkVersion is 17 or higher), then you should
  use “start” and “end” instead of “left” and “right”. For example,
  android:paddingLeft should become android:paddingStart.

• If you want your app to work with versions earlier than Android 4.2 (the app's targetSdkVersion or minSdkVersion is 16 or less), then you should add “start” and end” in addition to “left” and “right”. For example, you’d use both android:paddingLeft and android:paddingStart.