Snippets

A small, fully offline Android app for storing and editing formatted text snippets and copying them to the clipboard with formatting preserved, so they paste as rich text into supported apps. Home-screen widgets copy a snippet in one tap.

• Kotlin, classic Views + XML (no Compose)
• No permissions at all — no internet, no analytics
• minSdk 26, targetSdk 36, AGP 9.2.1, Gradle 9.6.1

Build

Requires JDK 17+ and the Android SDK (platform 36). Point the build at your SDK with either an ANDROID_HOME environment variable or a local.properties file in the project root:

sdk.dir=/path/to/Android/Sdk

Then:

./gradlew assembleDebug

The APK lands in app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk.

Install on a USB-connected phone

1. On the phone: Settings → About phone → tap Build number 7 times to enable Developer options, then enable USB debugging in Settings → Developer options.
2. Connect via USB, accept the "Allow USB debugging?" prompt on the phone.
3. Verify the connection and install:

adb devices          # should list your phone as "device"
./gradlew installDebug

Using the app

• + creates a note. The editor is a real HTML editing surface (a WebView in contenteditable mode): whatever you paste — tables, fonts, sizes, nested lists — renders, stays editable, and copies back out unchanged. The toolbar has B / I / U, A (text color) and •≡ / 1≡ (bullet / numbered lists); they work on the selection or from the cursor onward.
• The editor's ⋮ menu has Edit HTML source — view or hand-edit the note's raw HTML in a monospace editor, then switch back to the visual editor (or just save). What you type is stored exactly as written.
• Back auto-saves (unchanged notes are left untouched); the check mark saves explicitly. The trash icon on each list row (or the editor's ⋮ menu) deletes.
• The list keeps a manual order: long-press and drag a note to move it; new notes appear on top. The ⋮ menu on the list screen has a Theme picker (System / Light / Dark).
• The copy icon on each list row puts the note on the clipboard with both a plain-text fallback and the note's HTML, verbatim.

Templates

The Templates tab holds snippets with one replaceable part:

1. Create a template, write the text, select the part that changes (a name, a date...), and tap { } — the selection turns into a highlighted slot.
2. To fill it in the app: type the new value in the bar above the toolbar and tap Apply — or copy a value anywhere and tap the clipboard icon on the template's list row, which fills the slot and copies the result in one go. The template remembers the last value.
3. Faster: add a Template (fill from clipboard) widget bound to the template. Copy a value anywhere (a name from an email, say), tap the widget — the value replaces the slot, and the clipboard now holds the filled, formatted snippet, ready to paste into Gmail.

There is also a Template (copy as-is) widget: it copies the template with its last saved slot value in one tap — no clipboard read, no filling — for when you reuse the same filled snippet repeatedly. It behaves like the one-tap snippet widget below, just bound to a template. Both template widgets shrink to a 1×1 tile (title hidden) or show the title when wider.

Widget: one-tap copy

1. Long-press the home screen → Widgets → Snippets → drag "Snippet (one-tap copy)" onto the home screen.
2. A picker opens — choose which note this widget copies. The widget shows the note's title.
3. Tap the widget: the note is copied with formatting. Android 13+ shows the system "copied" overlay; older versions show a small toast.

If the bound note is deleted, the widget switches to "Note deleted — tap to reconfigure"; tapping it reopens the note picker.

Test copy-into-Gmail

1. Create a note with mixed formatting (bold word, colored word, underline).
2. Copy it — from the list row's copy icon or a widget.
3. Open Gmail → Compose → long-press in the body → Paste. The formatting should survive. (If you use "Paste as plain text", formatting is dropped by design — that option reads the clipboard's plain-text representation.)

How the interesting parts work

• Editing: the editor is a WebView whose page (assets/editor.html) has a contenteditable div — a real browser engine editing the note's HTML directly, so nothing is lost in translation to a native text widget. The page pushes its HTML to Kotlin on every edit, so saving is synchronous. Format buttons call document.execCommand.
• Persistence: notes are stored as HTML in one JSON file (NoteStore), written atomically. The stored HTML is the source of truth — it is never round-tripped through Android's lossy Html.toHtml/fromHtml converters.
• Copy with formatting: ClipData.newHtmlText(label, plainText, htmlText) puts both representations on the clipboard (ClipboardHelper) — the HTML one verbatim from storage. Rich editors read the HTML; plain fields fall back to the text.
• Widget tap: Android 10+ blocks clipboard writes from background code, so the widget's PendingIntent launches an invisible translucent activity (CopyNoteActivity) that copies once its window has focus, then finishes.