Create more useful tool extensions for Android.

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	BetterAndroid

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As the Android system continues to evolve, native development demands a growing learning curve. While there are countless utilities available, new fragmentation issues and edge cases emerge endlessly.

I originally created this project to address the friction I encountered in daily Android development—mostly dealing with cumbersome and outdated system APIs. Guided by the principle of "not reinventing the wheel", BetterAndroid focuses on enhancing what is already there.

From UI rendering to system-level interactions, it seamlessly extends native APIs. It is explicitly designed to tackle "black box" scenarios, bridging the gap between official behaviors and the quirks of third-party OEM ROMs.

Leveraging the power of Kotlin, everything provided here remains strictly non-intrusive. It ensures you can enjoy a smoother, more elegant developer experience without compromising the native ecosystem.

This library is a culmination of solutions refined across multiple real-world apps, with a significant portion of its core battle-tested and decoupled from my earlier project, PureReader.

BetterAndroid splits common but verbose Android work into several modules that can be introduced independently, including system version checks, ROM detection, UI components, system bars, adapters, and notifications. You can pick only what your project needs, or use the BOM to manage multiple Android module versions together.

If your code is filled with Build.VERSION.SDK_INT, Build.VERSION_CODES, or hard-coded API levels, system-extension makes version checks easier to read. It also provides detection for common third-party ROMs, which is useful when handling compatibility logic for OEM-customized Android systems.

AndroidVersion.require(AndroidVersion.T) {
    // Execute relevant code.
}

if (RomType.matches(RomType.HyperOS)) {
    // Execute relevant code.
}

For traditional View-based projects, ui-component provides preset Activity and Fragment components with ViewBinding, base views, and Compose entry support. This reduces repeated setContentView, inflate, and binding boilerplate during page initialization.

class MainActivity : AppBindingActivity<ActivityMainBinding>() {

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        binding.mainText.text = "Hello World!"
    }
}

System bars and Window Insets are easy places to hit edge-to-edge, cutout, and immersive-mode compatibility issues. SystemBarsController takes over system bar styles, visibility, and basic Edge-to-Edge behavior, while the Insets extensions in ui-extension help reduce repeated compatibility handling.

systemBars.init(rootView)
systemBars.behavior = SystemBarBehavior.SHOW_TRANSIENT_BARS_BY_SWIPE
systemBars.hide(SystemBars.STATUS_BARS)

For list screens, ui-component-adapter integrates RecyclerView.Adapter, ViewBinding, item click events, and diff updates into a compact DSL. You can bind data quickly, or use RecyclerAsyncDiffer for a more modern list submission workflow.

val adapter = recyclerView.bindAdapter<MyEntity> {
    onBindData { listData }
    onBindItemView<AdapterMyLayoutBinding> { binding, entity, position ->
        binding.textView.text = entity.name
    }
    onItemViewClick { itemView, entity, position ->
        // Your code here.
    }
}

System notifications are also wrapped as a more readable DSL. Notification channels are created automatically on the first post and compatibility for lower Android versions is handled for you, while the remaining parameters stay aligned with NotificationCompat.Builder.

val notification = context.createNotification(
    channel = NotificationChannel("my_channel_id") {
        name = "My Channel"
        description = "My channel description."
    }
) {
    smallIconResId = R.drawable.ic_my_notification
    contentTitle = "My Notification"
    contentText = "Hello World!"
}

notification.post()

	BetterAndroid Documentation

You can go to the documentation page for more detailed tutorials and content.

1. Add dependencies: Find the module you need and add it to your project.
2. Sync the project: After a Gradle sync, you can start using BetterAndroid.

In the opened page, select the Quick Start section in the sidebar to continue reading.

• Apache-2.0

Apache License Version 2.0

Copyright (C) 2019 HighCapable

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.

Copyright © 2019 HighCapable