Compose Glance: Build Android Widgets the Modern Way 🪟✨

Widgets are back in style - and with Android 16 + Material You, they're a big part of how users interact with your app. The best part? You can now build them using Jetpack Compose Glance, which brings a Compose-like API to home-screen widgets.

No RemoteViews. No XML gymnastics. Just clean, declarative UI.

🔹 What is Compose Glance?

A Jetpack library that lets you build app widgets using a simplified, Compose-inspired syntax. It isn't full Compose, but it feels familiar - Column, Row, Text, Button, modifiers, etc.

Glance is perfect for:

• ✓ Quick actions
• ✓ Status summaries
• ✓ Shortcuts
• ✓ At-a-glance info

⚡ The Smallest Example

Here's a tiny widget in Glance:

class GreetingWidget : GlanceAppWidget() {

    @Composable
    override fun Content() {
        Column(
            modifier = GlanceModifier
                .padding(16.dp)
                .background(Color.White)
        ) {
            Text("Hello from Glance 👋")
            Button(
                text = "Open App",
                onClick = actionStartActivity<MainActivity>()
            )
        }
    }
}

And register it:

class GreetingWidgetReceiver : GlanceAppWidgetReceiver() {
    override val glanceAppWidget = GreetingWidget()
}

That's a full widget - no XML, no RemoteViews, no boilerplate.

💡 Why Use Glance?

• ✨ Declarative and Compose-like
• ✨ Material You support
• ✨ Small footprint
• ✨ Easy updates via updateAppWidgetState()
• ✨ Faster iteration vs classic widgets

Glance brings your home screen up to the level your app already runs on.

🪄 TL;DR

Compose Glance makes widgets fun again. If you've avoided widgets because of old APIs, this is your moment to try them:

• ✨ Simple
• ✨ Declarative
• ✨ Material You-ready

Your users get useful, glanceable info. You get clean, modern widget code.