How to Use 'Rotatedrawable'

Rotating a drawable in Android

You need to use Bitmap and Canvas Class functions to prepare drawable:

Bitmap bmpOriginal = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(this.getResources(), R.drawable.image2);
Bitmap bmResult = Bitmap.createBitmap(bmpOriginal.getWidth(), bmpOriginal.getHeight(), Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888);
Canvas tempCanvas = new Canvas(bmResult); 
tempCanvas.rotate(90, bmpOriginal.getWidth()/2, bmpOriginal.getHeight()/2);
tempCanvas.drawBitmap(bmpOriginal, 0, 0, null);

mImageView.setImageBitmap(bmResult);

In this code sample rotation for 90 degrees over image center occurs.

Android RotateDrawable: Doesn't correctly work for Vector Drawables

Seems to be a bug. vectorDrawables.useSupportLibrary = true solved the problem.

See "Vector drawables backward compatibility solution" section of below page for details:

https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/graphics/vector-drawable-resources

Rotate drawable has not effect

Try using imageView2.setRotation(180) instead of rotation drawable.

Android rotate drawable in button

You can create a layer-list which contains animation with a drawable.

ic_refresh_rotate.xml

<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item>
        <rotate
            android:drawable="@drawable/ic_refresh"
            android:fromDegrees="0"
            android:pivotX="50%"
            android:pivotY="50%"
            android:toDegrees="360" />
    </item>
</layer-list>

Now set the drawable as compound drawable for the Button or TextView.

<androidx.appcompat.widget.AppCompatTextView
    android:id="@+id/textView"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="Hello World!"
    android:textSize="16sp"
    app:drawableLeftCompat="@drawable/ic_refresh_rotate" />

Finally, in your java code, try to start the animation like the following:

Drawable[] compoundDrawables = textView.getCompoundDrawables();
for (Drawable drawable : compoundDrawables) {
    if (drawable == null) continue;
    ObjectAnimator anim = ObjectAnimator.ofInt(drawable, "level", 0, 10000);
    anim.setDuration(1000);
    anim.setRepeatCount(Animation.INFINITE);
    anim.setInterpolator(new LinearInterpolator());
    anim.start();
}

Result:

Is it possible to rotate a drawable in the xml description?

I could rotate in XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rotate xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" 
        android:fromDegrees="90"
        android:toDegrees="90"
        android:pivotX="50%"
        android:pivotY="50%"
        android:drawable="@drawable/mainmenu_background">
</rotate>

The fromDegrees is important.

Basically this is a rotate animation defined in XML. With fromDegrees you define the initial rotated state. The toDegrees is the final rotated state of the drawable in the animation sequence but can be anything if you don't want to use animation.

I don't think it allocates resources for animation as it doesn't have to be loaded as animation. As a drawable it is rendered as it's initial state and should be put in the drawable resource folder.
To use it as an animation you should put it in anim resource folder and can start the animation like this (just an example):

Animation rotation = AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(this, R.anim.rotation);
rotation.setRepeatCount(Animation.INFINITE);
myView.startAnimation(rotation);