Claude Activity Journal 2026 Update 01
A chronicle of projects developed and enhanced with Claude Opus 4.5 assistance throughout 2026.
Project Summary
Updated 2026-01-23 by Claude
| Date | Project | Key Work |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-01-09 | simple_music_player | Landscape mode, tablet layouts, play/pause fix |
| 2026-01-10 | ReplicaIslandKotlin | Gamepad support, DataStore preferences migration |
| 2026-01-11 | SearchViewBottomNav | Kotlin DSL conversion, fastscroll refactor, lint fixes |
| 2026-01-11 | MotmBrowser | Gradle migration, R8 code shrinking |
| 2026-01-11 | markdownToPDF2 | Test files added |
| 2026-01-11 | jimandreas.github.io | RTFM blog post, og:image meta tag fixes |
| 2026-01-12 | AndroidOpenGLESLessons | Kotlin DSL, Timber logging, SDK 35 update |
| 2026-01-12 | jimandreas.github.io | Tech treadmill post, CPT images |
| 2026-01-13 | OpenGLES-sandbox | Fix deprecated API usage, version updates |
| 2026-01-13 | materialistic | Kotlin DSL conversion, OkHttp 5.x fixes, lint cleanup |
| 2026-01-13 | jimandreas.github.io | Chief Programmer Teams vs AI Agents draft |
| 2026-01-14 | materialistic | Room schema export and kapt warnings fix |
| 2026-01-15 | jimandreas.github.io | Hugo-Octopress theme update |
| 2026-01-18 | MotmBrowser | Add molecules 258-313, category reconciliation |
| 2026-01-20 | MotmBrowser | MOTM images update, “ALL” layout, image paths |
| 2026-01-21 | MotmBrowser | Auto-centering captures, unit tests, toolbar nav fix |
| 2026-01-22 | MotmBrowser | Website verification tests for corpus/category data |
| 2026-01-22 | ReplicaIslandKotlin | DialogFragment migration, gamepad button remapping |
| 2026-01-22 | simple_music_player | Seek/progress UI fixes, slider inactive track styling |
| 2026-01-23 | ReplicaIslandKotlin | Right trigger axis support, DataStore singleton fix |
Highlights
ReplicaIslandKotlin gets gamepad support! The classic Android game received full gamepad controller integration on January 10th, including joystick input, button mapping for dual-keycode controllers, and a complete migration from deprecated PreferenceActivity to modern DataStore with PreferenceFragmentCompat. This modernization effort involved a careful dual-write migration strategy to ensure backward compatibility.
OpenGL projects modernized: Both AndroidOpenGLESLessons and OpenGLES-sandbox were updated on January 12-13 with Kotlin DSL build systems, version catalogs, SDK 35 targeting, and deprecated API replacements. ListActivity was replaced with modern Activity/AppCompatActivity patterns across both projects.
materialistic Hacker News client overhaul: The popular Material Design Hacker News reader received extensive updates January 13-14, including conversion to Kotlin DSL with version catalog, OkHttp 5.x compatibility fixes, removal of obsolete @TargetApi annotations, and resolution of Room schema export and kapt warnings.
SearchViewBottomNav refresh: On January 11th, this project received Kotlin DSL conversion, fastscroll bubble refactoring, and comprehensive lint error resolution.
The week demonstrated a consistent pattern: modernizing Android projects with current Gradle practices (Kotlin DSL, version catalogs), updating to latest SDKs, replacing deprecated APIs, and improving code quality through lint fixes—all accomplished efficiently through Claude Opus 4.5 collaboration.
Week of January 18-23
MotmBrowser receives major content expansion: The Molecule of the Month browser was updated January 18-22 with 56 new molecule entries (258-313), bringing coverage from June 2021 through January 2026. This involved adding PDB code mappings, entry descriptions, and reconciling category data with pdb101.rcsb.org. The image capture system gained auto-centering functionality, and new website verification tests ensure the corpus and category data stay synchronized with the upstream RCSB source.
ReplicaIslandKotlin modernization continues: On January 22-23, the game’s dialog system was migrated from legacy dialog
Activities to modern DialogFragments with full instrumented test coverage using Espresso’s inRoot(isDialog()). Gamepad
support was enhanced with button remapping fixes, joystick dead zone improvements, and right trigger axis support for
jump controls. A DataStore singleton issue was resolved along with sound warmup timing problems.
simple_music_player UI polish: On January 22nd, the music player received fixes for progress bar behavior—the UI now properly updates when seeking while paused, and the progress resets correctly when changing folders. The slider’s inactive track color was lightened for better visual feedback.