Date Widget

A modern, Material 3 Pixel-style Android home-screen widget shaped like a 4-leaf clover, showing today's weekday, day number, month, and year.

Note: The entire codebase for this project was written by AI (Claude / Windsurf Cascade).

Download

Don't want to build from source? Grab the signed release APK directly:

📦 date-widget.apk

Sideload it on your Android device (you'll need to enable "Install from unknown sources" for your browser/file manager).

Requirements

• JDK: 17 or newer
• minSdk: 26 · targetSdk: 37 · compileSdk: 37
• AGP: 9.3.1 · Gradle: 9.6.1 · Kotlin: 2.4.10

First-time setup

Release builds are signed from a gitignored keystore.properties in the project root:

storeFile=../release-keystore.jks
storePassword=…
keyAlias=release
keyPassword=…

Without it, release builds fall back to the debug signing key.

This project ships without the Gradle wrapper JAR (binaries aren't committed). Generate it once:

# If you have a system Gradle >= 9.6
gradle wrapper --gradle-version 9.6.1

# OR just open the folder in Android Studio — it will bootstrap the wrapper automatically.

Build & install

./gradlew :app:installDebug

Then on the device: long-press home screen → Widgets → Clover Date → drag onto home screen.

Architecture

File	Role
DateWidget.kt	Glance composable: clover background + text + Today pill, size-aware (compact vs regular).
DateWidgetReceiver.kt	GlanceAppWidgetReceiver, listens for date/time/timezone/locale changes.
DateUpdateWorker.kt	CoroutineWorker that refreshes at local midnight via WorkManager.
MainActivity.kt	Minimal launcher screen with an "add widget" hint.
res/drawable/bg_clover.xml	VectorDrawable with the 4-leaf clover path and a radial purple gradient. drawable-night/ overrides for dark theme.
res/drawable/bg_today_pill.xml	Rounded shape drawable for the pill.
res/xml/date_widget_info.xml	AppWidget provider metadata (2×2 minimum, resizable).

Design notes

• Shape: baked as a VectorDrawable path because RemoteViews can't host Jetpack Compose shapes at runtime.
• Gradient: <gradient android:type="radial"> inside the vector (API 24+).
• Dark theme: via res/values-night/ + res/drawable-night/.
• Wallpaper-dynamic color (Android 12+): the -v31 and -night-v31 resource qualifiers bind the clover gradient stops, text, and pill fill to @android:color/system_accent1_* so the widget automatically re-tints to match the user's wallpaper palette. On Android 8.0–11, it falls back to the static Material 3 purple palette.

Tapping the widget

Opens the system Calendar app at today's date (CalendarContract.CONTENT_URI/time/<now>).

Wiki

Detailed design decisions, architecture notes, and development history are documented in the wiki/.