compose-resources

Compose Multiplatform Resources

Overview

Shared images, strings, fonts, and files for Compose Multiplatform live in a composeResources/ directory. The Gradle plugin scans it and generates a type-safe Res object (Res.drawable.*, Res.string.*, Res.font.*) usable from commonMain. Requires Kotlin 2.0+ and Compose Multiplatform 1.6+ (1.6.10+ to include resources in published artifacts).

When to use

• Adding drawables/strings/fonts/files to shared CMP UI
• Res.drawable / Res.string not resolving
• Per-locale, per-theme, or per-density resource variants
• Loading raw files across platforms (Res.readBytes)

Setup

// build.gradle.kts (module with shared UI)
kotlin {
    sourceSets {
        commonMain.dependencies {
            implementation(compose.components.resources)
        }
    }
}

Directory layout (under a source set, usually commonMain)

commonMain/composeResources/
├── drawable/   ic_logo.png, banner.xml   (PNG/JPEG/WebP/bitmap or Android XML vector)
├── font/       inter_regular.ttf
├── values/     strings.xml               (<string name="app_name">…</string>)
└── files/      config.json               (any folder hierarchy)

Qualifiers via hyphen (priority order language → theme → density): values-de/, drawable-dark/, drawable-en-rUS-mdpi/.

Usage

import myapp.shared.generated.resources.Res          // generated package
import myapp.shared.generated.resources.ic_logo
import myapp.shared.generated.resources.app_name

Image(painterResource(Res.drawable.ic_logo), contentDescription = null)
Text(stringResource(Res.string.app_name))
Text(stringResource(Res.string.greeting, userName))             // with args
Text(pluralStringResource(Res.plurals.items, count, count))     // plurals
val family = FontFamily(Font(Res.font.inter_regular))
val bytes: ByteArray = Res.readBytes("files/config.json")        // suspend

Custom Res package (optional)

compose.resources {
    publicResClass = true
    packageOfResClass = "com.example.shared.resources"
    generateResClass = auto
}