Target API 36, Compose UI, modernised dependencies, screenshot tests

[cyberb]

Google Play requires new apps and updates to target API 36 from 31 Aug 2026. The listing and existing installs were never at risk (targeting 35 already met the bar for staying visible to new users), but no further release could be published without this. CI is green — build 117.

Build

	before	after
compileSdk	33 (see below)	36
targetSdk	35	36
AGP	8.5.2	8.13.2
Gradle	8.7	8.14.5
Kotlin	2.0.10	2.2.21
version	24000 / 24.00	26000 / 26.00

compileSdk was declared inside defaultConfig, where Groovy's owner-first closure resolution silently applied it to the android extension — so the build compiled against API 33 while targeting 35. Now explicit.

Stayed on AGP 8.x deliberately: AGP 9 removes the applicationVariants API this build uses to name the output APK. That choice costs exactly three dependency versions, all held one release back — core-ktx 1.18.0 (1.19.0 wants AGP 9.1/compileSdk 37), okhttp 5.4.0 (5.5.0 wants compileSdk 37), and compose-bom 2026.06.01 (2026.08.00 pins the compose 1.12.0 train, whose -android artifacts want AGP 9.1/compileSdk 37). All three move together whenever AGP 9 lands.

multiDexEnabled dropped — minSdk is 23, multidex native since 21, no multidex artifact ever declared.

UI rewritten in Compose + Material 3

All five screens. Removed: every XML layout, both ArrayAdapters, both dialog classes, PreferenceFragmentCompat, the options menu, all findViewById, and the appcompat / material / swiperefreshlayout / preference-ktx dependencies. Activities extend ComponentActivity and go edge-to-edge.

SwipeRefreshLayout → PullToRefreshBox, CircleProgressBar → CircularProgressIndicator, ListView+adapter → LazyColumn+ListItem, preferences XML → a plain Compose screen (it holds four entries).

Migration detail: dropping androidx.preference removed PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences, so the app now opens "<package>_preferences" directly — the exact filename PreferenceManager used. Any other name would strand existing users' saved credentials and server choice.

Dependencies removed

• log4j 1.2.17 + de.mindpipe:android-logging-log4j 1.0.3 — unmaintained since 2015 and 2011. The appender only wrote to logcat, so a small android.util.Log wrapper keeping the Logger.getLogger/info/error shape replaces both. ACRA still captures logcat, so crash reports are unaffected.
• guava 27.0.1 — three uses of Maps.newHashMap/Lists.newArrayList/Sets.newHashSet, all covered by Kotlin stdlib.
• commons-lang3 — no references anywhere.
• androidx.legacy:legacy-support-v4 — was transitively supplying androidx.swiperefreshlayout; now irrelevant since Compose replaced it.
• materialloadingprogressbar 0.5.8 — abandoned 2016, JCenter-era.

Upgraded: ACRA 5.13.1, Jackson 2.19.4, coroutines 1.11.0, junit 4.13.2, mockk 1.14.11.

Jackson is pinned to 2.19.4, not latest. From 2.20.0 the module references java.lang.invoke.MethodHandle, which D8 cannot desugar below API 26 and which fails dexing at minSdk 23. Raising minSdk to 26 would also have fixed it, but that drops Android 6.0/7.x users.

mDNS discovery

NsdManager.resolveService and NsdServiceInfo.host were deprecated in API 34 — invisible at compileSdk 33, hard errors at 36 under allWarningsAsErrors. API 34+ now uses registerServiceInfoCallback + hostAddresses, with the old path behind a version check down to minSdk 23. The callback is unregistered on first resolve, since unlike ResolveListener it otherwise keeps delivering updates.

Also fixed a race: checkQueue() was @Synchronized but endResolving() wrote isBusy outside the lock, and a bare LinkedList was reached from callback threads. Now AtomicBoolean + ConcurrentLinkedQueue.

Device-side discovery is unchanged — rootfs still advertises _ssh._tcp named syncloud on %h, and the app still browses that. A dedicated _syncloud._tcp type would be correct but needs a rootfs change plus indefinite dual-browsing for already-deployed devices.

Screenshot tests

Six screens captured via Robolectric + Roborazzi, rendering real composables on the JVM inside the existing gradle test step — no emulator, no QEMU:

artifact/screenshots/
  01-auth.png  02-credentials.png  03-devices-saved.png
  04-devices-saved-empty.png  05-discovery-no-wifi.png  06-settings.png

A collect step gathers these plus the APK and the HTML test report into artifact/, which the existing scp step ships to /home/artifact/repo/android/<build>. It runs when: status: [failure, success], so a red build still uploads whatever rendered.

CI runs testDebugUnitTest rather than test: the compose rule launches ComponentActivity from ui-test-manifest, which lives on debugImplementation so it never reaches a shipped APK, and testReleaseUnitTest therefore cannot resolve it.

Composables carry testTag identifiers throughout, so tests select by tag rather than text or position.

Note: Roborazzi runs in record mode — every run writes fresh PNGs, it does not diff against a baseline. Switching to comparison later is a one-line change once you're happy with how the screens look.

Duplicate CI builds

The pipeline had no trigger block, so Drone built every event and each PR produced two identical builds (103/104 were the same commit). Now event: ["push", "tag"]. tag must stay — the publish to github step is gated on when: event: [tag], and a push-only trigger would silently end APK publishing.

Not verified by CI

The CircularProgressIndicator and PullToRefreshBox behaviour, the Bridge-free theme, and real mDNS discovery against a device all need a look on an actual phone before release.