Generic Android client

This repository implements a generic library for Android. This is not the app itself.

Unfortunately there's no way to keep track of the clipboard unless you are the keyboard app (custom IME). Implementing a keyboard app just to track clipboard changes is a huge task, so instead we provide a pluggable library that can be integrated into other open-source apps.

List of patched apps:

1. android-florisboard for FlorisBoard

Installation:

The library is hosted on JitPack, the link contains installation instructions.

API

This library wraps the same generic-client using FFI and wraps it later with Kotlin API.

Build scripts automatically download the static library and the header from generic-client repo (android-arm64 build) and compiles them into dynamic library that is later loaded by Android runtime.

Additionally the library provides:

1. settings screen written in Jetpack Compose that can be rendered in the target IME app
2. connectivity widget for your Home Screen

Settings screen

Widget

Integration into existing IME app

In short, the API is not only designed to be minimal but also to have as few interactions with existing code as possible:

1. add JitPack to the list of repositories somewhere in settings.gradle.kts
2. add implementation 'com.github.mpclipboard:mpclipboard-android:Tag' to dependencies list
3. make sure the app has permission for INTERNET
4. change existing IME service to create an Android's ClipboardManager and subscribe to it
5. instantiate MPClipboard class provided by this library
6. subscribe to its changes and do bi-directional copying between local clipboard and MPClipboard
7. register a widget

Patched version of https://github.com/mpclipboard/android-florisboard is a "good enough" reference implementation. Clone it, apply a patch and check the diff, there are only 105 LOC and all of them are additions, so you don't need to understand how FlorisBoard works.