yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
It's overdue in my opinion, hope to have it added in one of the next few releases. I think most if not all of the cloud services offer thumbnail downloads. For SMB, FTP, and SSH, FX would have to grab the full size image and scale it down. There would have to be two preferences added, "fetch cloud thumbnails" and "generate thumbnails for network catalogs". The latter would have three states, on, off, and "local network only" (same subnet). There would also be a size limit for network thumbnail generation, and they'd be done in series (one download thread).
[Android Apps and Games] Nucleotide:
I'm not sure if this has been reported yet but some times thumbnails aren't being displayed locally. I know someone has mentioned thumbnails not displaying on cloud services but for me, it's happening locally as well - in some cases.

In the screen shots below, one set of icons are displaying fine, the other set are not.

View attachment 1529238View attachment 1529239
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
When you long-tap and select "Details" on one of the icons, do the ones without icons have a "Media Database Id"? Currently FX relies on an icon existing in the Android media database (or being eligible to be created) in order for thumbnails to be displayed.

This works as well as the Android media database does...which is unfortunately synonymous with "not good enough". I will be moving away from using this strategy in a not-too-distant release.

And if you don't see a media database id..check if there's a .nomedia file in the path hierarchy anywhere.
[Android Apps and Games] Kachar123:
Few wishes

Thanks for very high quality and beautifully executed application. I have to make following points:

1. I would like to have ability to create and open password protected encrypted Zip and Rar files.

2. It would be nice if you can include a "mini" Audio/ Video Player to preview audio/video files while browsing through FX just like "X-plore". At present we have to open these files in dedicated media players for preview as a result we lose focus from FX.

3. The Icons which appears for various file types such as PDF, Zip, Doc etc are not the generic icons which we normally see for such files in Windows, as a result we have to carefully see the extensions of the file names to figure out which file is of which type which is very frustrating.
[Android Apps and Games] Nucleotide:
There doesn't appear to be any Media Database ID. I can't see any .nomedia file either.

They are just regular PNG files by the way. I've copied them from a folder on my computer to a folder within Documents on my phone. They aren't from any icon pack that you can download from the Market or otherwise.
[Android Apps and Games] thedicemaster:
tliebeck mentioned a few pages back he was considering allowing the creation of password protected archives.

as for media player: install Google play music and set it to default for opening mp3 files.

this will open a mini music player showing fx dimmed on the background.

I think the idea of a movie player was already rejected a while ago because it would never be as good as the alternatives available on the play store.

and those icons in Windows are ©Microsoft.

if tliebeck where to use them he could probably be sued by Microsoft.

besides, the icons in fx are all easy enough to recognize.
[Android Apps and Games] Kachar123:
Thanks thedicemaster for your response.

1. Glad to know that password protected archives is on to-do list.

2. Thanks for your tip regarding Google Play Music. This is exactly what I wanted, but unfortunately it only supports audio files and no video. Maybe tliebeck will reconsider this. One thing is clear that I am not expecting the mini video player to be as good as a dedicated video player. Just basic preview in a small popup window.

3. I think icons are generic (in particular icons relating to zip, rar and pdf files) and can be seen at many places which are not connected with Microsoft, so there should not be any problem with them.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
FX's display of thumbnails currently relies on images being indexed by the Android media database. If there's no media database entry, a thumbnail won't be displayed. You can force the media database to update via Tools->Rescan Media. Thumbnails won't be generated if ancestral folder contains a .nomedia file.

This algorithm is going to change in the not-distant future due to issues like what you're experiencing. FX will still respect .nomedia files to avoid thumbnails being generated for potentially sensitive data (or at least require that an option must be checked to enable them).
[Android Apps and Games] Nucleotide:
Perfect. Did a media rescan and all the thumbnails are now showing correctly. Thank you! :good:
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
FX 1.1.1 is now* available (* for values of "now" greater than about 30 minutes after the time of this posting, i.e., when the Play Store finally updates it cache :D).

This release adds a "7-Day trial" option for FX Plus, accessible from the Add-ons screen. If you need more time, uninstall/reinstall will solve the problem, but please don't feel the need to abuse this (again, if you're a starving student/dev and you can't afford Plus but need it, pm me your email).

General feature changes include:

Notifications have been improved and use the device's built-in style (no more white backgrounds on black screens).

Added "Open in New Window" context menu option in file windows.

Long filenames are now truncated in file views (can be disabled via settings).

Added setting to disable warning when remounting filesystems as read/write (as root).

Added support for creating new symbolic links (symlinks) as root.

MDNS lookups now use hostsnames rather than IP addresses when possible (i.e., when creating a network connection and browsing the network).

Added a confirmation dialog when canceling edits made to a network connection. (Few things are more frustrating than accidentally canceling a newly created network connection).

Added workaround for bug in GMail with regard to attachments.

Performance and UI/aesthetic improvements.

Text editor updates include:

Added new text editor-specific settings panel.

Added optional toolbar (useful for cursor navigation on touch-screen devices). (I hope to add selection support soon to this toolbar).

Undo/Redo now appear as an "on-demand" toolbar when selected from the menu (more convenient on touch-screen-only devices).

Aesthetic updates.

Samsung multiwindow support was temporarily removed....it will be back.
[Android Apps and Games] mdalacu:
Why did you remove support for S Multi View? Thank you.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Sorry about this...but in its current state it's broken (and not usable IMO based on the screenshots). Menus are calculating their size incorrectly with multiview, and I didn't have time to correct it and post another release here for testing before firing 1.1.1. It will be corrected soon.
[Android Apps and Games] elban:
Just wanted to say that "open in new window" is not available in the home screen.
[Android Apps and Games] GermainZ:
I might have mentioned this before, but it seems slightly worse now.

All popup menus are too big on my mdpi screen. While it's usually minor, it becomes a real inconvenience in the editor when the keyboard is out.

Hiding the keyboard does not show the full popup (its bottom stays faded), and I have to click "view" twice to hide it and show it correctly.

Other than that, thanks a lot for the improvements (symlinks, name trimming especially).

A few suggestions: the ability to open .db files (I have SQLEditor and FX doesn't detect it), not necessarily with a built in viewer.

Also, when using the xda forum app / Tapatalk, I have the choice to attach a picture using FX Gallery, but it only gives an error.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
I think adding this option doesn't wind up saving any time. "Open in New Window" is opening the window in the foreground.

Current scenario:

Tap catalog item.

Navigate to where you want to go within opened catalog.

Tap "Windows" menu.

Tap "New Window".

If a "Open in New Window" added to context menu:

Long press catalog item.

Tap "Open in New Window".

Navigate to where you want to go within opened catalog.

Tap "Windows" menu.

Tap on the unchanged "Home" window.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
The menu should scroll if you drag on it. That said, a better solution here would be nice...even just the option to disable icons in editor menus.

Will associate .db files...is "application/x-sqlite3" correct for these?

Thanks for reporting this...I changed the file chooser to send content:/// URIs rather than file:/// URIs to work around the fact that gmail is randomly/intermittently broken with file:/// URIs. I've now received two reports that this breaks other apps. I'll add a "Send as" option in the next release to the file chooser. I'd recommend emailing the developer/s of the other app as well...I think the way we're doing it now with content:/// URIs is the "more correct" way on Android...but documentation on this is thin.
[Android Apps and Games] elban:
Yes, but I would expect to have it there anyway :)

Then everybody can choose which way fits best for them.
[Android Apps and Games] GermainZ:
It didn't scroll for me. I think custom icon sizes/custom row/columns should be enough (especially that I use most of these icons frequently).

Also, the issue with Tapatalk isn't new. It also happened with the previous version of FX.

Regarding the .db mime type, I don't know. Tried checking root explorer's sql database, but .db isn't associated to a mime-type.
[Android Apps and Games] GermainZ:
I think there's a misunderstanding about the attachment issue. I can't select a picture in the first place.

To reproduce the problem on Tapatalk:

Attach an image and choose "FX Image Viewer". See the screen for the result.
[Android Apps and Games] Pons:
Does that include the changes from the review/write up?
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Thanks, I was thinking it was bringing up the "File Chooser" activity. It looks like there's a bug in FX's manifest here...the Image Viewer is wrongly supporting "pick". Does tapatalk provide the option of "FX File Chooser"?
[Android Apps and Games] GermainZ:
It doesn't.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Sorry for the delayed response. A "top-secret" new feature is coming very soon, and I have been entirely focused on getting it out.

Yes, the performance improvements are of the type mentioned in that write-up ( i.e. http://www.curious-creature.org/docs/android-performance-case-study-1.html ). One thing I didn't realize was that the default Android background was being drawn all the time...that's gone now.

As mentioned in the PM, I tried to further optimize FX's rendering of wallpaper. I had the main portion of the FX home screen looking as good on overdraw as Android's own settings panel. This involved using a ColorFilter for FX's wallpaper drawable...which worked great (and is the proper way to do it) until I tested on a Gingerbread device, where performance was significantly degraded as a result. So there's still two layers of background (unless you turn the wallpaper feature off).

The other improvements were part of the ongoing effort to minimize layout complexity/view count (mentioned in that article as well).

There's still more to be done.
[Android Apps and Games] everlethal:
Man, no "top secret" please.

Can you say just a little bit.
[Android Apps and Games] neim81094:
Dude I love this app the second I got it a couple months ago I deleted all my other file managers this is perfect and its aesthetically pleasing

Sent from my SGH-T999

If I helped please press the thanks button :)
[Android Apps and Games] Nucleotide:
This top secret new feature could be good. Very interesting!
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
This made my day...I was just looking at the new 2014 Chevrolet Silverado / GMC Sierra pickup truck press release and photos. Saw this:

Take a close look at the phone: http://www.netcarshow.com/gmc/2014-sierra/1600x1200/wallpaper_11.htm (larger photo)
[Android Apps and Games] jacklebott:
That's awesome dude, congratulations!
[Android Apps and Games] Nucleotide:
That is definitely awesome - well done. Congrats. :good::good:
[Android Apps and Games] hitask:
Nice features

I used around 5 File Explorers before switching to FX and never felt the need to switch to something else. Really like the complex features it offer in a simplified way :good:
[Android Apps and Games] elban:
Now you have your slogan: "The General Motors file manager of choice" :D
[Android Apps and Games] paul c:
Brilliant! Subliminal advertising!!!!!!! :laugh:
[Android Apps and Games] peterbonge:
It seems that for SMB, FTP, and SSH it doesn't really make sense. At least I would give it a lower priority.

More important would be things like:

- Cache cloud files, at least viewed images.

- Swiping left/right through the images and stop at the beginning/end (no looping).

- Double tap to zoom images.

This is how image viewing works with the original Dropbox app and there it works much better than with this app.
[Android Apps and Games] neim81094:
The only bug I find is that Bluetooth transfer doesn't work no matter if they have the file manager installed or not :(

Sent from my SGH-T999

If I helped please press the thanks button :)
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Hello everyone!

Sorry to be a bit absent lately but have been pretty involved in building a new feature into FX. I now have a test release if anyone would like to try it.

The new feature is called "Usage View" and is designed to help you quickly determine what folders and content are occupying your storage space. It's based on the indexed database used for file search.

Usage View is accessible from any local file window. Tap the View menu and select "Usage View". Usage View is disabled when you exit a file view.

A screenshot:

Usage view adds a graphic indicator next to each folder/file showing its relative consumption of space. The indicator is on a logarithmic scale. It's intended to show relative size. For example, the Android folder in the screenshot above is consuming 15% of the space, but the indicator is nearly 3/4 filled. Something using 15% of your storage space is quite large.

Above the files is a horizontally scrolling toolbar (but on a tablet such as this Nexus 7, it doesn't need to scroll). The first pie chart shows how much space the current directory is using relative to other folders and free space on its storage medium. The second pie chart shows the percentage of space occupied by each class of file. "Documents" include plain text files and content types of common Office/OpenOffice documents.

More screenshots:

The TEST VERSION can be downloaded here: http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r233/FX_r233.apk

The CURRENT STABLE build (identical to current week-old Play Store build) can be downloaded here (r229): http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r229/FX_r229.apk

This version should install directly over an existing copy of FX (retaining your settings/bookmarks).

If you want to download the test version, please grab the stable as well. If the test version causes you problems, you can downgrade back to stable without losing bookmarks/settings.

The final release will hopefully also be out very soon once more testing has been completed. Please report bugs ASAP!

Thanks for trying it and/or for any feedback!
[Android Apps and Games] iXNyNe:
Downloading now, looks awesome!

P.s. called it!
[Android Apps and Games] elban:
Looks like a very useful feature!

The only eventual problem that I see is how it will look like on a small screen, like 3.5". I hope to have a bit of time later, to test it on an old htc tattoo that I have lying around :)

Will the new version come with "preserve time" feature? It's important IMHO.

Thanks!
[Android Apps and Games] iXNyNe:
OK I'm sold, this is one of the greatest features I've ever seen in a file manager. And you made it work and look so good!

My only gripe so far is I can't set usage view as default like I can for icon or list view.

I see it takes a bit to build the index, but that's super fast on my phone (sgs2).

Maybe a good idea for small screen sizes would be to make the pie charts bar up top optional.

Also when did you add there Media scanner option? I just noticed that and fx has now replaced yet another app in my drawer :)
[Android Apps and Games] ardax:
I've gotta admit, Usage View is really cool.

I do wish I could use it in /data/data as root though.
[Android Apps and Games] mdalacu:
Nice feature! Thanks! My only problem is that in the test version Samsung Multi Window still does not work ... Please re-enable it. Thank you.
[Android Apps and Games] iXNyNe:
Good call. It seems it can't be used anywhere in the root module, this would be very handy if possible.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Thanks! I'm looking into options for this. The data won't be as complete, but the sizing information may still be possible with decent performance. The user-storage analysis is using the file index (previously used only by the search).
[Android Apps and Games] jacklebott:
Usage view's looking awesome :good:
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Should look fine on HVGA screens. All dimensions are in density independent:

Haven't tried QVGA yet, but those really are on their way out as they generally look terrible running any app.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Regarding setting date/time on transferred files. I just tried to implement it...and failed miserably.

Here's what I found:

Droid X, 2.3.4, stock: Correct Android API call, i.e., java.io.File.setLastModified(), works properly.

Droid 4, 4.0.4, stock: Android API call fails. Executing Linux "touch" command works properly.

Galaxy Nexus, 4.1.2, CM10: Android API call fails. Executing Linux "touch" command fails (as user). Executing busybox "touch" app fails (as user). Executing touch commands as root works properly.

nexus 7, 4.2, stock: Same as Galaxy Nexus.

Looked for Android issues, found these:

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=25460

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=15480

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=18624

It looks like Google doesn't care about it.

So unfortunately, unless we can find another solution, this feature will have to be left out (or it can be implemented for root only). I don't want to make use of root access during normal file operations.
[Android Apps and Games] jacklebott:
You could make it optional to use root during the file operations maybe?
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Probably will just suggest that people use root access to perform date-critical operations.

Even with a disabled-by-default option, there will be angry users as a result of this, claiming that FX is up to no good.
[Android Apps and Games] neim81094:
How do I get to usage view? I try liking everywhere for it and I can't find it :confused:

Sent from my SGH-T999

If I helped please press the thanks button :)
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
In a local file directory, tap the "View" menu, then "Usage View". This feature is only in the test version (posted a few posts back).
[Android Apps and Games] neim81094:
O that's why I downloaded the stable version

Sent from my SGH-T999

If I helped please press the thanks button :)
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Sorry about that...just edited my post to indicate stable build == old version from Play Store. Only posted that so that people could easily revert back without obliterating their settings/bookmarks.
[Android Apps and Games] neim81094:
No problem I'll just wait until it's an official feature I'm happy with my stable release lol

Sent from my SGH-T999

If I helped please press the thanks button :)
[Android Apps and Games] Nucleotide:
Impressive update! Thank you. :)
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
It's coming together. It won't be practical to support all the metrics that are possible with the file index backing it (as it is in user storage mode), but the critical items will be there.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Thanks (and sorry to have missed this post).

One solution for small screens would be to make the "overview bar" scroll with the list of files....probably will add this at some point, albeit not 1.2.0.

I think the media scanner has been around since the initial beta release. :D I know the design was improved since then at least once, but I think the option has always been present.

I wanted to wait before making it a persistent/remembered view mode. The underlying problem being that this feature will reduce performance a bit when it's active. This isn't noticeable on most configurations, but when you have several "dozen-thousand" files on a device it can take a second to calculate on the top level folder.
[Android Apps and Games] elban:
That's pretty sad :(

I thought it was a very basic feature for any OS and I'm shocked it desn't work on android. Now I understand why many "sync" programs that work on the sdcard have problems when doing the first run: they can't trust the file mtime and so they need to run their own database for that.

Anyway thanks very much for trying! :)
[Android Apps and Games] neim81094:
My files all say they are from the 1970 in my internal and 1980 on my external sd unless I transferred the files/folders through a computer. XD

Sent from my SGH-T999

If I helped please press the thanks button :)
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Seriously? Does this happen everywhere in FX or just in one section? And if you open a terminal app on the device does it show anything different?

e.g., enter in the terminal:

cd /mnt/sdcard

ls -l

^ That's "L S SPACE MINUS L" in lower case.
[Android Apps and Games] ardax:
Well, requiring root isn't the worst possible thing in the world. To be honest, I wonder how many people are terribly worried about them that aren't going to be rooted. What about setting mtimes on remote FSes? I don't know what SFTP uses, but FTP uses the MDTM Command.

Sweet! What paths are covered in the index? Is there any chance of allowing the user to index extra paths to make usage view (or searching) more useful in other paths? Even if not, that will be a lot better.
[Android Apps and Games] neim81094:
It only shows in the folders that android created specifically the apps that do system modifications or backups. And yes it shows to in terminal

Sent from my SGH-T999

If I helped please press the thanks button :)
[Android Apps and Games] neim81094:
Here we go lol

Sent from my SGH-T999

If I helped please press the thanks button :)
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Yeah...that's certainly quite strange.

Any chance the date somehow became tweaked on the device?

If not, if you make a new folder with FX, does it get the old-time date?

If you enter "touch foo" in the terminal (in a user-writable directory), and then ls -l foo , does the created "foo" file have the correct date?

And what about just typing "date" in a terminal...does that give a correct value?
[Android Apps and Games] neim81094:
So everything in terminal shows the correct date when I created a new folder through fx in the ext and int sd card the date was correct to my understanding the folders with the wrong dates were generated by the android OS :confused:

Sent from my SGH-T999

If I helped please press the thanks button :)
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
If it's just those directories...create a new file inside each and delete it...that should bring them up to date.

Guessing that's just an artifact of the stock internal storage image.
[Android Apps and Games] peterbonge:
@tliebeck: When can we expect the thumbnails, cache and image viewer changes? I'm asking because I've just tested another file manager which supports all the mentioned things. It is so great to be able to view picture galleries on Dropbox or Google Drive similar to the gallery app.
[Android Apps and Games] Namoi:
+1 too for the go back trough hierarchy when using bookmarked folders.

;)
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
I want to get this in very soon, I think it's currently the most requested feature. The next release is almost finalized so it won't make the cut for that.