yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Apps and Games] thedicemaster:
you need to share a folder first before you can view it in FX.

on android one method you can use is the app "FTP server ultimate"

that app also makes your android device reachable from your pc.
[Android Apps and Games] GermainZ:
Replaced a bunch of other file explorers/archive managers. I think it's gonna replace SManager now as well.

A slight suggestion, tho - maybe make it clearer the script has ended? Perhaps color the exit code. This would be useful for script that don't output anything to stdout. Thanks!
[Android Apps and Games] 2LoT:
Hi tliebeck,

Would you consider to add "App Manager" feature into FX? I know that SystemPanel has this feature. But how about the users who need FX and AppManager?
[Android Apps and Games] Pons:
Can't remember what App Manager is from SystemPanel (it's been awhile since I've used it), but I assume it's some sort of App Manager, where you uninstall stuff. Not sure how this falls within the realm of a file explorer. If that's all it does, I'm against it, unless someone has a good arguement on how it applies to a file manager. You don't want to be a victim of feature creep, and make the app more and more bloated, imo. Just my two cents.

@tliebeck using the latest Koush Superuser (as in embedded, not from Play Store), and FX is no longer sluggish when doing root operations. So Koush fixed it somewhere.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
I actually started working on app management a day or two ago. This will be an FX Plus feature.

I do think it's within FX's scope of "managing the items on a phone/tablet / transferring items to/from a phone/tablet." And yes, that's a pretty broad scope.

FX is already used to manage local files, OS files (root module), images/audio/video files (via media catalogs of FX plus), and network and cloud files. I think application management will be a good fit.

One anecdotal reason that I think this feature is somewhat important for FX is that users will be using the root feature to disable/remove OEM garbageware from their /system partitions. There's already an option in the "Details" screen when viewing any APK in /system that allows you to disable the app via the package manager (I'd rather people do this the *right* way rather than renaming or deleting the APK).

This feature is essentially another way of looking at the /system/app, /data/app, and application data storage directories using a more purpose-built viewer. It's in the same vein as the music/audio catalog, which looks at music in its "natural" hierarchies, e.g., by artist, album, or playlist.

There will be "links" from the App Manager back into the file manager. For example, a user might look at a particular application in the App Manager and then tap "Open Data Directory" to be presented with a file manager view showing the /data/data/com.someapp directory.

There will be some overlap with SystemPanel. This bothers me in one sense as I don't like the idea of redundant functionality or my own products competing against one another. That said I shouldn't hold back one product simply to avoid infringing on the domain of the other--users are going to severely (and rightly) dislike that. And FX certainly isn't going to show you recent CPU usage for an app (that's outside of its scope).

The only item that should bloat with the addition of features to FX would be the APK size. The biggest factors in bloating the APK size are new icons and additional third-party libraries. Only about 25-30% of the APK is non-library Java code.

I've tried to keep FX decoupled. Adding a new "catalog" to the FX home screen won't have any impact on the other systems. And if you don't want to see a particular catalog, it can always be disabled from the "View"->"Customize Home" menu of the home screen.

Here's a *very early* screenshot:
[Android Apps and Games] 2LoT:
Thanks, this becomes very interesting. One more question, what is the technical reason for "FX Root Access" to be plug-in? If it is free, would it be simpler to integrate it into FX? If the device is not rooted then this functionnality will just be disabled. By integrating Root Access, this helps to simplify the installation procedure a little bit.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Originally, root was also a paid add-on. When it was initially made free, it was kept as an add-on for transitional purposes. After that there was thought/discussion of integrating it into FX itself. It's technically an "unlock key" at present.

It is likely that it will become more than an unlock key in the not too distant future, in that it will host a service through which all root shell operations will be performed.
[Android Apps and Games] bruce7373:
Re: [Android 2.1+] FX File Explorer: a "desktop-class" file/media manager

Is there any way to view and change the attributes of files in the main storage, or is that limited to root files only?
[Android Apps and Games] GermainZ:
You mean permissions? Permissions files on the SD Card can't be changed anyway.
[Android Apps and Games] thedicemaster:
you can attempt to change the attributes by visiting internal storage through the root browser, but any changes will likely be discarded because most filesystems for internal storage and memory cards have limited or no support for those attributes.
[Android Apps and Games] bruce7373:
Re: [Android 2.1+] FX File Explorer: a "desktop-class" file/media manager

Here's the deal: I copied a file from my PC without realizing it was read-only. I wanted to write to it and was looking for a way to change that attribute with FX so I could.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
This is the only way I've been able to enable/disable read-only state of a file on a FAT filesystem. Whether it works or not is device-specific and possibly media-card location specific (i.e. it may work with your external SD card but not your internal storage).

The technical details: The Android API call File.setWritable() does not work. Invoking chmod as a non-root user does not work. Invoking chmod as root does work (but you have to leave all permissions intact except for the writable flags or this too will fail).

My experience is that you can make a copy of the file and then delete the read-only version.
[Android Apps and Games] access9:
Re: [Android 2.1+] FX File Explorer: a "desktop-class" file/media manager

This by far the best file manager app, thank you!

I love the addition of the ability to run scripts and create home screen bookmarks to run them. I have a request: would it be possible to add a toggle to hide the stderr display? Also, the font is too big, I would really like to be able to adjust the size.

Thanks again for such a great app, keep up the good work!
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
How would you all feel about the APK size of FX increasing from 4.5 MiB to 5.5 or 6.5 MiB?

I want to add XHDPI (320DPI) and XXHDPI (480DPI) icons. I'm trying to optimize things so that we're closer to 5.5 MiB, but 6.5 MiB may be the case. The problem is that we have 224 icons that likely need to be rendered at 144x144, 96x96, and 64x64. Runtime-downscaling is likely not an option due to severe issues in Android's image scaling system. Load time won't be affected, it'll just take longer to download and take up more space. I've seen people get *REALLY* ticked about this on the Play Store though. I think I'd rather have the icons look significantly better on high-res devices and just take the heat though.

And in case anyone's interested in what's wrong with Android image scaling or has an idea, check out:

http://android.nextapp.com/fx/junk/scaling.png

That's the same image downscaled to various resolutions on Android. In the case of the first shrunken version (1/3 size of original), Android literally just reads every third pixel, losing significant information. The second two are 1 or 2 pixels under 50% size, resulting in some notable artifacts. This is all with bitmap filtering turned on. And yes, the hideous test image is designed to exacerbate/test the problem.

I still need to put up a stackoverflow post on this issue...perhaps there's a magic setting that'll make everything just work.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Thanks! You can currently long press on the STDOUT or STDERR to open them fullscreen. This does need to be improved, and adjustable font-size needs to be added.
[Android Apps and Games] juried:
I'm having trouble with the bought LAN/cloud add-in. I want to copy files from a PC on the LAN to my tablet, but I don't know how to add a SMB server. I don't know what the address might be except to open (to me) some esoteric dialogs to discover the server address. Now in ESfile, I can just select LAN, and then SCAN, and it finds all PC on the LAN. But FX does not - it never finds anything at all, and I have to enter the address manually but this changes from day to day as it is dynamic. Then I can go on from there but it is inconvenient.

So why does the browse button not work?
[Android Apps and Games] bruce7373:
Re: [Android 2.1+] FX File Explorer: a "desktop-class" file/media manager

I can't answer that, but until you get it sorted why not assign static IPs to your PCs so you just have to manually add them once?
[Android Apps and Games] NFleck:
I absolutely love it. I started using Astro, then switched to Xplore for the dual-pane file manager.. I'll be adding your app to my "important apps" folder asap, and if a dual-pane manager was added, it would be my only file manager.

I will add an update for a review, and review your app on the play store as well. Thanks for sharing this.
[Android Apps and Games] GermainZ:
Multiple Windows > Dual Pane.

A gesture (e.g. swipe down with two fingers) to switch between windows would be neat, tho.
[Android Apps and Games] iXNyNe:
Re: [Android 2.1+] FX File Explorer: a "desktop-class" file/media manager

Please don't do a dual pane... Its one of the most poorly done features I've had the displeasure of using in all other file managers.

I agree that windows are the way to go, and I don't really care about gestures but I agree they would be useful for many.
[Android Apps and Games] Nucleotide:
No issues with that here. :good:
[Android Apps and Games] GermainZ:
I don't mind, but isn't there an option to deliver multiple APKs depending on the device? Depending on the amount of work involved, you might want to distribute different packages for each resolution.
[Android Apps and Games] elban:
I wouldn't mind trading a bigger apk for high resolution icons :)
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Thanks everyone! I posted up my issue with Android image scaling on StackOverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15292445/cleanly-down-scaling-images-in-android-can-it-be-done

If this were fixed I could potentially use a single large image for everything and the APK size wouldn't change much. Of course my real wish would be for Android to just support SVG.
[Android Apps and Games] thedicemaster:
you can also use the name of your computer, this usually doesn't change unless you reinstall windows.

to find it, click start, right-click computer/my computer, and click properties(last option).

it should show the name somewhere on that screen.

this works for windows xp, vista, and 7, and any other windows version with a start menu.

on windows 8 open explorer(file browser), go to computer if it isn't there yet, and click system properties to get to the same screen.

on XP or older the name will probably be full-caps, and on newer windows versions it will be clearly marked as the computer name.

the name is not case sensitive.

the browse option has never worked for me either, but i usually know what IP/name my computers have.
[Android Apps and Games] ardax:
Don't care. I've never been starved for app space on a phone. (Now... HTC's previous implementations of /datadata, OTOH...)

XDA members are probably not the best group to be asking this particular question though. :)

That said, I'm sure there's a number of people who would appreciate it if there were a way to distribute the larger APK only to appropriate devices.

Upvoted your SO question. Sorry I don't have an answer.
[Android Apps and Games] access9:
Re: [Android 2.1+] FX File Explorer: a "desktop-class" file/media manager

No problem with me.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Very good point regarding XDA. FX does now have about 75% of users on Android 4.x though.

I'm reading up on using specifying different screen densities for different APKs. This unfortunately looks like a bit of a disaster. I've yet to find any documentation that describes whether I can have a "default" APK that will work everywhere (i.e., the large APK with all resources). And they actually suggest "duplicating your project" (which would be a nightmare).

Solution may be to forego pxiel-perfect XXHDPI and let 480DPI devices have 320DPI icons. This isn't that bad, as I don't think it's common to support them with full-resolution icons, and you're at or over the limit at which the eye can discern detail.
[Android Apps and Games] elban:
Re: [Android 2.1+] FX File Explorer: a "desktop-class" file/media manager

Managing multiple projects is not that bad. You can have a main one where you work on, and a shell script (or ant itself) that generates the others and builds them in order to have all the different apks.
[Android Apps and Games] NFleck:
Re: [Android 2.1+] FX File Explorer: a "desktop-class" file/media manager

You don't think xplore is well done? I highly disagree but, to each his own. I had to switch back to xplore as I really enjoy the functionality of it.. Have you tried the latest version?
[Android Apps and Games] 2LoT:
Hi Tod,

Just purchased the Plus add-on. Some feedbacks I would like you to review:

1. Terminology: Why use Copy / Cut / Paste to represent Copy File or Move File? Would it be more intuitive to label the button to "Copy To ..." and "Move To ..." ? When one of these action is iselected, then present a popup that contains a list of possible destination folders: the current folder as first item, followed by the bookmarked folders, then the last items would be Other ... which then allows the user to navigate to another destination folder.

2. Home Screen with Sliding Views. The FX Home screen is rather crammed. Everything in one screen with requires scrolling up down quite often. I think each category Bookmarks, Files, Media, Internet and Network, Resources deserves to have their own screen. The user navigate from one to the other categories by sliding the screen left / right.

3. Optimize the presentation of the home screen: May be it is debatable. But here is my idea to better use the home screen to display more content without (I hope) hurting the clarity.

3.1: Use a different font color to display the big title "Name of Bookmark", "Main Storage", Images, "Music / Audio", Network, etc. Then remove the underline blue line. While you are at it, is it OK to allow the user to set the font properties too? At least I'd to reduce the font size a little bit

3.2: description under the title ("Main Storage/Music", "xxx Images, 8.5 GiB Free", etc.): this is well done and a good idea thanks. However, can you display all in 1 line. If too long, just truncate the text? Some description are not really useful. For example, under Cloud Storage, there is always a line "Online Internet Storage", under Netwrok, there is always "Windows (SMB), FTP, and SSH Servers. In my opinion, there is no need to echo the title in the description. Especially the user will soon discover what that really means as soon as he/she select the item.

4. Cloud Storages: although the existing list is OK. But would it be OK to add more providers? MegaCloud, BitCasa for example.

5. "Check this box if your are certain": when customizing the Home screen, hiding some item like BlueTooth, System requires to check "Check this box if your are certain" before taping OK. Is it that dangerous? There is nothing irreversibly destroyed here. If the user makes a mistake, it is possible to go back to Customizing Home screen and recheck the box again. Unless I am mistaken here but I think hiding items on home screen is a benign action that doesn't need a warning/confirmation.

Hope you'll find these feedbacks useful, and more importantly to see some of them implemented. Thanks.

PS: Regarding the size of the APK. I don't mind the size. You can make it 20 MB if you want.
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Thanks for the purchase and feedback!

There currently is an option to reduce the size of the home screen, go to Settings, "Appearance", and scroll down to "Home Screen Item/Font Size". I far prefer the "Small" option on my own phone. I've been tempted to reduce the size of the "Normal" setting a little bit as well. I think it's a bit too large, especially for the 4.7"+ display size phones. Doing a general redesign of the home screen (and all the sub-home screens) is definitely of interest at some point in the not-too-distant future though.

The annoying warning dialog when removing items is annoying. :) The problem is that I "really really really" don't want people to accidentally disable options there. You're effectively removing functionality from the app. I don't want people to attempt to declutter their homescreen and then be upset that they can no longer access "feature X". This probably would be better implemented as a one-time dialog, or at least one dialog "per session" within the home customization dialog.

Regarding copying/moving files... first, I need to offer my opinion there are two types of "easy" when it comes to user interface design: There is "easy to learn" (i.e., intuitive) and "easy to use" (i.e. practical and efficient). The unfortunate issue is that they're very often at odds with one another. Microsoft Word is easy to learn but is commonly not easy to use. Eclipse, vi, and Emacs are not easy to learn but are easy to use...provided you know how to use them.

I've thought of adding "move to"/"copy to" and may do so at some point. They'd certainly be simpler for new users to understand, but this design is significantly less efficient/useful than cut/copy/paste. Commonly a user will have the intended destination already open in a second window. Or the user will select some files to cut, then navigate to the target directory, then remove a few things or create a new folder for the items, and then paste them. This feature may go in, but it will definitely be an addition rather than a replacement. The one problem we have is that the File menu and long-press context menu are already quite full of options.

I'm currently somewhat against adding horizontal scrolling to FX. I do think well done horizontal scrolling can make for a very neat interface, but it can also make for a confusing one. It's certainly the current rage in UI design on Android ICS and (especially) Windows Phone. I'm hesitant to add it to FX without a UI designed entirely around it--and I don't think such a complete redesign would be an improvement. I worry about the UI becoming something akin to Google Play Music, which is an app that I honestly still do not understand how to navigate.
[Android Apps and Games] hikki6139:
Graphic is awesome !
[Android Apps and Games] 2LoT:
Oh yeah, that's right I forgot that these options exist. Especially I've already used this to set them all to small. And yet I find them still a little bit big. May be this is just a question of font size proportion that you overlooked somewhere. Because actually I like big font, to the point that I set the General Android settings, Display, Font to Large. Somehow the item font size on FX seems big to me, even at the Small setting.

Strange, I suppose you have had many tech support requests about missing features. But was it because the user "forgot" that he/she had disabled the feature 3 months ago. Or was it because the user was confused about features between free and plus version? May be a more intuitive settings layout would alleviate the confusion? Currently, I thought that it was in Settings, Appearance. Seeing nothing, then I quickly saw the 2nd item "Home Screen" just below Appearance. Then here I _expected_ top see options to customize and saw nothing and left. Until later I "discovered" it was another sub-screen under "Customize Home Screen". Or more quickly in View/Customize Home. I don't think the Home Screen customization is a frequent operation, except may be the first week. It would be simpler to put that Home Customization screen in the Tools / Settings / Home Screen (i.e remove the "Customize Home Screen" submenu). The View / Customize Home barely saves only 1 tap.

To avoid the user wondering what is free and what is Plus, just display the Plus feature but with an icon "Plus" somewhere to remind the user that this is the "+" feature (like the way Nova Launcher presents its options).

True and thanks for the explanation. The multi-Windows is indeed a neat concept, I must get used to.

How about allowing to switch between multiple Windows by horizontal scrolling? In a round robin fashion? May be that will combine the best of both?
[Android Apps and Games] DrUnKenSTeiN:
First i want to say that i won't have any problem if the size of the app increase.

A suggestion: When i highlight 2 folders or more and hit open , it would be nice if they could auto-open in new windows(disabled/enabled from settings?). Lets say i want to do some work between 3 folders in the same directory, higligting them and open them in new windows by just hitting open would be faster imo.Or if i have 2 windows sdcard and external and highlight some folders and hit open to have them all open at once in new windows.

Now if i do this i get an error message.
[Android Apps and Games] Maxx247:
Re: [Android 2.1+] FX File Explorer: a "desktop-class" file/media manager

very good file manager app
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
This is a great idea, will try and get it implemented soon (I can't promise it for 1.5.0 though). Thanks again!
[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Thanks again for all the comments/suggestions and sorry for the delay in response (been terribly busy, with FX).

The "customize home screen" feature should be available from the home screen itself and from Settings->Home Screen. I would like to completely revamp the settings, it's definitely on the list. The warning dialogs in this case would probably be less offensive if they showed up once per "session" of customization...i.e., the first time you disable an option, you're warned that "Disabling options here will effectively make them inaccessible from the app".

Switching between multiple windows with horizontal scrolling is a bit of a problem. In the main "content area" this gesture is used for file selection. And in the "path bar" it's used for its traditional purpose (horizontal scrolling). I've thought about making a "two finger swipe" switch windows.
[Android Apps and Games] #illidan:
Re: [Android 2.1+] FX File Explorer: a "desktop-class" file/media manager

Long time user of the app & silent reader of this thread (finally felt it was time that I voice my opinion & help in whatever way I can). Excellent work on the Explorer. IMO it's the best out there. Functional, simple & has a plethora of options. Your an extremely dedicated developer to your app.

If I may chime in on the horizontal scrolling. What about changing the file select method to a double tap. IMO it's as intuitive if not less that the current swipe method & you'll then be able to use swipe for window scrolling. I'm basing my opinion on the fact that a two finger swipe option isn't very intuitive if you want to operate with a single hand which is how I use it most of the time but use cases can vary.

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[Android Apps and Games] tliebeck:
Thanks!

Regrettably though, to detect double-tapping would require adding a significant delay to the UI. The app would have to wait for the maximum allowed double-tap time to elapse before it could fire the single-tap event (i.e., open directory/open file).