yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Reviews are taken very seriously, but what's really appreciated is you posting this detailed info here. There are many problems posted in the Play Store reviews that I wind up not being able to duplicate...e.g., there's a fellow on there with a recent 1-star about Japanese character set corruption. He may well have a legitimate problem but I've no way of getting a hold of him...and my testing of Japanese characters seems to work fine.

This is definitely a problem, FX is intended to work well in your scenario and scrolling through large directories with good performance is a major requirement.

Could you try turning off thumbnail previews and seeing if performance improves? To do this, go to Tools->Settings->File Management and uncheck "Thumbnail Preview Icons". Then visit the 400+ file directory again. I'm certainly not suggesting this as a "solution", but just want to try and isolate the problem between thumbnail generation/display and simply viewing large directories.

And are you using the "list" or "icon" view to look at your files?

I'm going to grab an AOKP nightly and throw it on a Droid3. At present that phone has a CM9 nightly on it but it doesn't seem affected by this problem (no issue browsing a folder with 400 JPEG photos or with the 300 PNG icons from FX itself).

Thanks again for the detailed report!

UPDATE

:

Went by the AT&T store and tried out the Note (don't have one as a test device yet). Very nice device. Unfortunately it was running 2.3.6 or some such (thought they'd already pushed ICS stock, but guess that's imminent). In any case, it didn't exhibit the problem.

I also tried the May 6th AOKP for the Droid 3 and can't duplicate it there either.

Also, If you could post the logcat where it immediately suggests a force-quit due to it hanging, e might be able to glean some more information there.

And forgot to mention, yes WebDAV is in the plan, but I don't have an ETA on release (it may be pre- or post-1.0, TBD).
[Android Apps and Games] wormsman:
First look was very great. In special the network manageing works very good. Thanks for the great app.
[Android Apps and Games] kUdtiHaEX:
Allright, here is the report - I've disabled thumbnail preview and it works pretty nice, although there is a choppy scrolling still presented but at least it's not making FC anymore.

The answer for you second question is that i'm using the list view.

I will provide you with a Logcat log file in the next day or two. As for WebDAV - that is a great news :)

EDIT: before I catch some time for a logcat here is a video: http://youtu.be/7r90aaYLJpY
[Android Apps and Games] kUdtiHaEX:
And here is a cat. Hope it helps.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Thanks for the video and logcat, really appreciate it! It definitely looks like some work is being done on the UI thread which cannot be, but I can't yet identify what that might be. All the image thumbnail generation work is of course done on a separate thread.

Can you try viewing the images using the "Images" catalog (off the FX home screen) and see if the behavior is present there as well?

And one more question...are these the icons you are testing with?

http://chrisbanks2.deviantart.com/art/Cold-Fusion-HD-Icon-Pack-277808597
[Android Apps and Games] kUdtiHaEX:
The image viewer right from the fx's homescreen works like a charm, much much more bette and amoother then classic file management.

And yes theose are the icons i'm testing with but keep in mind that the same result is with a my dcim folder where are all my camera pictures stored. So if you worry about resolution of files I can tell you that the same fc result I've got with a bunch of 48x48px png files (also icons). So it does not seem like resolution related problem.

Edit: so i told myself that since just can't get the same behavior like me maybe my rom or the phone could be the problem. In order to take mSD oit of equation i have tried the same thing on the internal phone memory but without any luck. Also tried fresh install of my ROM (which is pain in the ass since I'm not going to restore my backup), no improvement at all.

So or the app has some weird bug or i'm just unlucky or this rom sux a lot (but again 99.99% of other thinfs works just fine).
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Yet another performance and bugfix release...0.158 is out whenever the Google Play Store feels like propagating it to all the servers.

User interface responsiveness improved when scrolling through directories containing large numbers of images.

Slightly faster loading of local file directories containing hundreds of items.

Fixed bug where cut/copy operations with very large selections (i.e., several hundred selected items) would not start.

Redundant soft menu key disabled for ICS and Honeycomb devices.

Fixed bug where large images were not displayed in Image Viewer on ICS and Honeycomb devices.

@kUdtiHaEX,

This release is aimed squarely at the bug you've demonstrated. Regrettably I still couldn't replicate the issue with anything close to the magnitude you were seeing.

I did find that there was a media database query being performed on a user interface thread, which has been corrected in this release and cures the stuttering I've seen with image-heavy directories with thumbnails enabled. I hope this was the problem, but this query was very insignificant, unless somehow the database were very loaded down at the time it was called.

Thank you again for making so much effort to help solve this, and please let me know if it 0.158 does anything to help the problem.
[Android Apps and Games] kUdtiHaEX:
I hope that you are going to be happy to know that you actualy solved the problem! Yes, FC which occured to me in the case described above is completely gone. But not only that, the scrolling performance is much more better now, pretty smooth as it should be on the phones of today.

So, you did a good job, thank you :)

I could also suggest a few interface improvements, for example you could implement ICS-like scrolling between cards instead of having windows. For example, if I browse my SD card but I also want to connect to my Google Drive, I either should go back to home and then open the connection or I have to open new window and then to connect. With this improvment I could just swype from left to right, open the connection which automatically becomes a new card and then I can easily manipulate between network and my files (if I want to upload something, for example).

This could also be good if I want to make few simultanious connections and browse few locations on my phone.
[Android Apps and Games] ardax:
Horizontal swipes are currently being used for multi-select/deselect. I'm not sure how one would swipe between windows then. Maybe horizontal swiping on the title bar? 2 finger swiping?

The only thing that snags me with multiple windows is that I always get confused about which window is the "current" one when I only have 2 windows open. I know it's just me being stupid, but it's what I do. An gesture to flip between windows would be really handy.

(I mean really, one has the same background color as everything else -- why would I think that's the current window instead of the one that's highlighted?)
[Android Apps and Games] peterbonge:
Maybe swiping from the outer border of the screen (x=0 or x=max)? That's how it works whith Google Chrome. I can scroll pages in every direction, but if I swipe horizontally from the outer border I switch the tabs.
[Android Apps and Games] kUdtiHaEX:
Gesture is something that people people aready know so I would preffer swype. Two finger swype, why not? I really think that would improve navigation which is currently a little bit complicated.

Also, I would like to have option to create my own Quick menu which would be located on the top right corner of the screen (on the breadcrumbs bar). So i can put there Copy, paste, create new folder and so on and so on.

How often do you use View options? I don't use them at all, once I setup FX i don't change layout so much. Do we really need this bar on the bottom to be always visible, taking some screen space (not to mention this large menu)? Then this bar should be invisible by default (or to be able to set it invisible). Swype up - there it is, swype down - no more bar, we have Quick menu for operations.

Or, for example, I want to multiselect some photos and upload them to the FTP i'm connected via FX. Why not have different breadcrumb layout for this action - select Multiselect option and then get additional buttons on breadcrumbs menu like Share, Copy/paste/delete/move and one button for "deselect". When you deselect, interface returns to normal. This is something QuickPic did and it is very good.

All these proposals are mostly for improving user experience, usability and organization of the app. It has many features but I think that now the developer should focus his thoughts on these things.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Any window-switching swipe operations would need to be two finger or vertical. As Peter Bonge indicated, we're already using horizontal swipe for file selection and the path bar at the top scrolls horizontally for navigation. The idea of requiring a one-finger window-switch swipe to begin at the extreme edge probably would work fine in the list view, but would be annoying in the icon view when attempting to swipe-select items at the edge of the screen.

Have also been considering a tabbed interface, at least for tablets. Of course I'd want to look at a split-screen option at the same time. This is all post 1.0 stuff though.

@ardax, I see your point on the window selection indicator with only two windows open. And I don't like the recently revised look of the Windows menu selection indicator in any case. It needs a "stronger" and better looking indicator to show which item is selected.

There is an option in the settings to hide the menu bar on Android 2.X phones, revealing it only when you press the menu key. I've never much cared to use this option as the increased space doesn't seem worth the additional step to perform actions.

Unfortunately ICS has deprecated the menu button, so the "Hide Menu" option is turned off for those devices. I need to check if it's possible to detect the presence of a hardware menu key such that this option will only be disabled if one does not exist. It's fairly critical to ensure that we can check this, as the alternative is that a user turns off his/her menu and has no way to recover it short of clearing FX's settings with Android's app manager.

I don't know about doing a quick menu in the path bar. Space is pretty limited there on most phones...if you're running a 720p display at 240dpi it's going to look like there's plenty of room, but you have 50% more space than the 800x480 folks at 240dpi. Bear in mind that the Galaxy Note is an extreme outlier compared to everything else on the market.
[Android Apps and Games] Vulpix:
Hey tliebeck, I know it's a minor issue, but will you be fixing the little space at the side? It's really kinda annoying to look at it. It doesn't break functionality, but it would be great to remove it.
[Android Apps and Games] iXNyNe:
This was discussed a few pages back I believe
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Yes, and it's intentional...see http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=24710402&postcount=569

There's a maximum menu button size, to prevent them from being too "stretched out". it's especially a problem on tablets with 1280px @ 160dpi. The rightmost area no longer lights up when tapped (as though it's a button) as of a version or two ago.
[Android Apps and Games] Vulpix:
Ooops, I didn't realize I posted about this issue earlier and even had a reply. My bad. :(
[Android Apps and Games] Nucleotide:
Latest update seems to be a lot smoother and responsive scrolling through a folder full of hundreds of pictures. No noticeable lag what so ever where as previously I would often get a little lag or a jump or two while it was scrolling.

Thanks a lot for all your hard work so far. I've been playing around with a couple of other file explorer like Holo and Solid and although they are both great, they just don't compare IMO.
[Android Apps and Games] ardax:
I'd like that.

It frustrates me personally because I know which one is highlighted, why it should be the way it is, yet I get confused and pick the wrong bloody item anyway. Once I hit 3 windows it's obvious, but my brain just locks up at 2. A gesture to switch windows would sidestep the problem completely.

Maybe make the path of the current window in bold face along with the highlighting? That would probably help.

Oh, is that how it works? I never realized that. Half the time I try to pan the screen I end up switching tabs because I want maximum panning ability so I start at the edges.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Unfortunately, the titles of all windows are already bold in the Windows menu. I'm thinking an indicator that isn't simply a background might work well though.

May try simply using the same style as menu toggle buttons. It'll remove a tiny bit of horizontal space, but should be a more obvious indicator.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
@ardax ... here's a screen showing the updated Windows menu from the next release (very soon).
[Android Apps and Games] ardax:
That looks really nice. The selection indicator and gradient help a lot.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
0.162 is now available on the market.

This release again focuses on aesthetic improvements, UI responsiveness, and incorporates a fair number of fixes as well.

Those who like black text on white backgrounds will be happy that these configuration settings now display as expected, e.g.:

(Black bar on right side is a DDMS screenshot artifact).

I'd ask again that folks please submit bug reports at this stage. If you ever see FX *CRASH*, it's especially important....it should of course never do that. Even occasional crashing is not okay, regardless of what you've come to expect from other software...it should NEVER CRASH. Please e-mail bugs (or just post here) if it does.

Additionally I'm very interested in any reports of not being able to connect to network or cloud servers.

Thanks again for testing/reporting bugs/suggesting ideas, really appreciate it all!
[Android Apps and Games] Half Man Half Biscuit:
Great app,looks different then the other File managers.

Smooth and lag free

Thanks for sharing
[Android Apps and Games] paul c:
Nice update :)

I can confirm that the Windows network, FTP (both when on the cellular network and on wifi) and cloud storage, work perfectly
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Added a 0.163 version due to a crash bug with image thumbnail generation detected via Android market crash reporting. FX was failing when attempting to generate thumbnails for images that no longer existed but were still present in Android's media database. This bug was likely introduced in 0.162 as that code was significantly updated, ironically with better error-checking for other types of errors.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Hello all!

Release 0.167 is now available. The improvements include:

Multithreaded I/O.

Network I/O Performance Improvements.

RAR Archive Extraction (UnRAR)

Archive extractor now offers “Extract to Folder” option.

Fixed bug w/ streaming videos over SSH connections.

More UI improvements/fixes for light colored background in file views.

New application icons.

General bugfixes and performance improvements.

As usual, it has just been uploaded and thus may take the Android market an 30 minutes to an hour to make it available.
[Android Apps and Games] elban:
With the new version, copying a folder from sdcard to sftp blocks during first file, saying "connecting" and then "error copying". File is truncated.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Thanks for the report and sorry for the trouble!

Do folders get created and is any data successfully transferred? Could you also try copying individual files to the server to see if they fail as well? Are you able to download files from it? Do any other severs work, or do any other network protocols (e.g. SMB, FTP, or cloud services) work?
[Android Apps and Games] EresboSS:
thanks this app is really good :)
[Android Apps and Games] everlethal:
Just checked unrar. It's working perfect. Thanks.
[Android Apps and Games] itandy:
Thanks for the update. FX has been my only file manager for a long time already. Great work! For the new release, I just don't like the new icon. Previous icon looks much better IMO. ;)
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Not much love for the new icon so far. Just curious, what don't you like about it, the folder or the FX logo?

The most significant issue with the old logo was it being a media card...obvious to technical users but I think the metaphor is lost on most people.

The most critical factor for the icon is that it be attractive and maybe stand out a bit in the Play Store. I know the folder metaphor can probably be called "played out", but when you see one you're certain it's a file manager.
[Android Apps and Games] iXNyNe:
I love the new letters but I'm not a huge fan of the folder.

I like the idea of using a folder, just don't like THAT particular one.

Also the color of the folder (dark green?) Isn't my favorite.

I could also easily understand not using a folder because its overused.

Either way the new logo (font for the letters) is such a win that it distracts away from the folder, so its hardly noticed.

Overall I like the new icon.
[Android Apps and Games] iXNyNe:
On second thought the f for the fx logo looks very similar to the f that adobe uses to represent flash.

I still like it, but this could be viewed negatively by others.
[Android Apps and Games] elban:
The first folder is created. The first file is partly transferred. Copying a single file, same result. I can download fine. Dropbox with same file works.

Later I could grab a logcat.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Thanks! Two more questions...is the source your SD card (normal user) or are you copying from root? And secondly, what phone and ROM are you using?
[Android Apps and Games] paul c:
Strange there is so much comment about the icon - probably because there is little else to flag up!

I've been using the app now for a while as my default file explorer, and I find it excellent. There are a few areas where the number of keypresses could be reduced, notably deletes, plus the possibility to rearrange the home screen (moving down or removing links that aren't important for the user, that sort of thing).

Also, some way to force the phone to stay awake while transferring files, mine still eventually drops its data connection when the screen goes off.

Also, switching between the configured network locations (SMB/FTP/cloud)and the phone could be made easier by having a button at the top of the screen, which appears once a file/folder has been copied on the phone, and which is also present but showing the phone home folder when in the network locations.

I say that, since my normal workflow is to download something from my PC to my phone, and then I want to open the file - currently there are keypresses/swipes that could be avoided.

Unrar works great on smaller files :), I tried it out with a 400mb file - it unrared right to the end, then gave an "unknown error" :confused: - memory? There was space on the SD card, at least.

And the icon... I can see why the SD card is not a good idea moving forward since some phones don't/won't even have one. But - maybe it's just me - I think icons should be bright and noticeable. For example the SystemPanel icon is very attractive, IMO one of the best icons out there. Maybe just using the same 3 bright colours for folder backgound, folder and text?
[Android Apps and Games] elban:
Sdcard, normal user.

I'm on a galaxy nexus, standard 4.0.4 yakyu rom + franco kernel.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
The logo is based on a single sigmoid curve, replicated three times (two parallel, one flipped horizontally) The only element that isn't this same curve is the dash in the "f". There's a bit of skew (italic) applied to the whole item as well.

It's a pretty common design element, and the logo itself is quite simple, so there's bound to be some "this looks like that" depending on who you ask. Personally I never thought of it looking like the Flash logo, and looking at their logo more closely now, they do have a similar sigmoid curve, but the dash across it only extends halfway (which I think is what loses the association for me).

Logos can almost be classified as art in some circles, so I think a lot of people are going to love one and hate another.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
You can disable the confirm check for deletes now, just go to Settings->File Managemenet, and uncheck "Confirm Deletes" (the last option).

The bug with file transfers slowing down when the display is off should have been fixed in 0.167. It only affected some phones, e.g., the HTC Incredible, Nexus One, and Galaxy Nexus. The slowdown was generally very dramatic, i.e., from 1-2MiB/sec to 16KiB/sec.

Could you try the following and let me know what you see as far as a rate decrease:

1.) Perform a file operation, leave the screen on for 30 seconds or so, make a note of the transfer rate.

2.) Turn the screen off until the transfer finishes.

3.) Go to "Windows"->"Operations", tap the completed operation, tap "Details" and then take a look at the "Mean Transfer Rate".

Let me know how significant the difference is between the screen-on transfer rate and the overall transfer rate.

And with regard to UnRAR...can you tell if the extracted files are intact? (i.e., was the error valid?) Regrettably the underlying code we have to use for RAR extraction is not particularly refined, and there are no alternative libraries.

Some modifications had to be made to this code to prevent entirely unnecessary out-of-memory errors, e.g., I saw a case the library tries to allocate a 300MiB byte array to extract a 37MiB file.

We're a bit trigger-happy on throwing exceptions in the RAR code. We're actually manually CRCing the output files as well (even though the underlying library is supposed to, and probably does). But given that it had to be modified, we CRC again to make certain our actual output matches the intended result. Also we immediately throw exceptions if the file contains any elements marked as encrypted, as the Java library does not support decryption.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Thanks again, and if you can grab a logcat, please post (also you can email it directly to "my XDA user name" at "that public mail service provided by Google.")

Additionally if you can try a different file (e.g. one of just a few bytes) it might shed some more light on the problem.

And I hate to ask you to do either of the following, as it's almost rude to ask....but could you try rebooting the phone, and also making sure there is disk space available at the destination? I manage to run into the second issue more often than I care to admit. :D (I should probably upgrade this computer's tiny SSD main drive.)

Have a stock Galaxy Nexus here (VZW, 4.0.2, soon to be 4.0.4)....works perfectly SSH'ing into Ubuntu 10.04, Linux Mint 13 RC, and Debian 6 boxes. (This does NOT mean your ROM/kernel is at fault of course...I've fixed issues with FX before that only showed up in certain configurations but were still my fault).
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Additionally, anyone who wants to go back to 0.163 for testing, it's available here:

http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r163/FX.apk

Just download and install with your favorite file manager, e.g. ASTRO, ES, or Sandisk Memory Zone. :eek:
[Android Apps and Games] elban:
Ok, here is some more information for you:

- it's ftps, not sftp

- tried a small file and it worked

- server is a qnap nas with about 0.7 TB free

Now rebooting and trying again :-)
[Android Apps and Games] elban:
tried rebooting, no luck,

here is logcat.