[APP][2.1+] FX File Explorer Dev Thread (5.0: Material Design UI, Wi-Fi Direct Xfers)

[APP][4.1+] FX File Explorer Dev Thread (7.0 released)


Hello all,

This is the ongoing development thread for FX File Explorer. I greatly appreciate feature suggestions, bug reports, and general feedback!

FX intends to be an uncluttered, everyday-usable file manager for Android. The primary development goal has been to create the same level of usability, intuitiveness, and efficiency as that offered by the file manager on your desktop computer.

Local file management features of FX are free, including the root features, indexed search, cleaning tools, usage view, non-encrypted archive creation/extraction, the text editor, and all other viewers (e.g. script exec, binary viewer, image viewer). The network/cloud stuff and media-specific stuff (e.g. browsing music by album, editing playlists) is a paid add-on called "FX Plus".

The free version of FX is not a "Lite" version or some kind of watered-down demo. There is no advertising in FX. And there is no user-tracking, phoning home, or any other "doubleplusungood" stuff of any kind in FX.

FX Connect Demonstration

A demonstration of FX connect. Phones are paired together using NFC by opening FX and touching their backs together. Transfers take place over a high-speed Wi-Fi Direct connection.

Home Screen

The "Home Screen" appears when you first open FX. The idea of the home screen is that you create bookmarks to the folders you actually use, rather than milling through the garbage every app places in the root folder of your SD card.

One last note regarding the free-vs-plus stuff: The features shown in the "Media" and "Internet and Network" sections are part of the "FX Plus" add-on, while everything else is free. And another note: the home-screens below have every option turned on: you can use the "View" menu to customize what is shown.

• The first image shows a default home screen.
• The second image shows the home screen configured with a translucent dark theme and view mode set to "Icon". The translucent dark theme uses your default system wallpaper (or optionally an alternate wallpaper of your choosing).

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Directory Browsing

These screenshots show FX viewing a directory. The one on the left shows the Material Design Teal theme, the one on the right uses a translucent theme.

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Windows and Split View

FX supports multiple (unlimited) windows, with the ability to view one or two at a time.

• The first screenshot shows the window menu, which is accessible by tapping the slide-out icon in the upper left corner or sliding your finger from the left edge of the screen to the right.
• The second screenshot shows the split view mode. You can enter this mode from the window menu by tapping "Split View", or by dragging the path bar from the top of the screen downward.

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Root / Developer Features

FX supports root access. Root access requires an add-on, but the add-on is free.

Root access is kept entirely separate from normal file browsing, and can optionally be protected.

Developer features include:

• Root access may be secured via PIN, Password, or Warning; secured access can be enabled for viewing or only for modifications
• Remount filesystems as read/write or read-only
• Disable System Apps
• Root Usage View
• Recursive Search
• Modify permissions
• Change Ownership/Group, with Android-based design (e.g. select an app-specific user by app name; see screenshot)
• Symlink Creation (relative and absolute)
• Shell Script Execution, with support for creating launcher shortcuts to execute scripts [NR]
• Explore APK Contents [NR]
• View Android Binary XML Files in Text Viewer [NR]
• View any file in Binary Viewer [NR]
• MD5/SHA1 Checksum and Composite Checksum Calculation/Comparison (checksum directory structures, optionally with UNIX permissions, [NR])

Items marked with [NR] do not require root, but may offer more functionality when root is available.

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Text Editor

FX includes a full-featured text editor. It can edit local text files, edit files as root, and edit files on remote hosts (with FX Plus add-on). Features include:

• Undo/Redo with History (able to undo/redo multiple times)
• Cut/Copy/Paste
• Pinch-to-zoom font scaling
• Proportional and fixed fonts, word wrap can be enabled/disabled
• Optional shortcut bar can be enabled to provide arrow keys and fast access to undo/redo
• Jump to line number, beginning/ending of file
• Find text within documents
• File browsing for Open/Save As
• Enable/disable autocorrect
• Multiple color schemes
• Save/load files in different character sets

Plus Add-On

All features demonstrated above are entirely free. The Plus Add-On is the paid component of FX, and adds additional features:

• Application management: browse user, system, or all installed apps
• Browse installed apps by permission (e.g. find all apps which require GPS location or Internet access)
• (Root Access Required) View /data usage by application, disable any application
• AES-128/256 Zip Encryption/decryption; browse inside encrypted zip files/folders, view text files, images, audio and video files without ever writing decrypted version to media
• Browse all Images, browse images by folder (e.g. Camera folders on different media/SD cards)
• Browse camera Videos or all videos on device
• Browse Music by Artist, Album, Playlist, or view all music
• Browse ringtones, podcasts, notifications, and alarm sounds
• Create playlists, add albums/tracks/artists/playlists to playlists, reorder playlists via drag-and-drop
• Bluetooth FTP and Bluetooth Pairing within FX (pushing files via Bluetooth does NOT require FX Plus if your device supports it)

FX Plus adds support for the following network/cloud services:

• SMB (Windows Networking), supports network browsing (SMB1 and SMB2)
• FTP, including FTP-S and FTP-ES; browsing local network supported via mDNS
• SSH, including public key, password, and interactive authentication; browsing local network supported via mDNS
• WebDAV, including WebDAV over HTTPS; browsing local network supported via mDNS
• Google Drive
• Dropbox
• Box
• SugarSync
• Microsoft OneDrive
• OwnCloud (by creating a WebDAV connection)

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Current Play Store Version

To get the current version (5.x) from the Play Store, simply click here:
Download via Play Store

Beta Testing

FX can be beta tested by either downloading APKs directly (links will be posted in this thread) or via the FX beta channel on Google Play. At any given time, there may or may not be a release in the beta channel. (There won't be a release when a beta has just been pushed into production).

To join the Google Play public beta test and receive automatic updates:

Step 1: Join this Google+ community: https://plus.google.com/communities/101301040394875566704

Step 2: Visit this page to opt-in for beta testing: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/nextapp.fx
Beta APKs are also posted in this thread.

Step 3: Get FX from the Google Play Store: Download via Play Store

If you'd prefer to download an APK directly:

Go to the last page of this thread and grab a beta APK by clicking a download link: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1253399&goto=newpost

APKs of FX are archived here:
http://android.nextapp.com/fx

Notable versions:

• FX 2.3.0.8, r2108: last release of the 2.x series. http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r2108/FX_r2108.apk
• FX 3.1.0.4 r3122: last release of 3.x series http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r3122/FX_r3122.apk
• FX 4.0.6.0 r4040: last release of 4.x series http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r4040/FX_r4040.apk
• FX 5.1.x.x r5140: last release of 5.x series http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r5140/FX_r5140.apk
• FX 6.3.0.1 r6301: last release of 6.x series http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r6301/FX_r6301.apk

Root add-on:
The root add-on is available for direct download here: http://android.nextapp.com/fx/FXRoot.apk
(Root features may now be enabled directly via settings.)

djsubtronic said:

I really like this.

Is there a way to select multiple files?

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Thanks! Yes, multiple file selection is accomplished by a swipe gesture:


(the above is supposed to be an animated GIF image, if it's not showing, see the Youtube video at the top).

More info on selection can be found here: http://android.nextapp.com/site/fx/doc/basics

creage said:

Just installed, and actually very surprised! The app is fast! I mean, no lag at all, even with continuous reloading of picture previews ).

First thing I miss - editing files. Root Explorer provides simple text editor, which is quite handy. Next - changing permissions - I need it ). And executing .sh/.rc etc scripts.

And what about multiple selection, and actions on these, like move/copy/delete?

I liked your text viewer has font settings - it's amazing! Why not implement same feature for file lists? Coz I find titles bit bold, I want them lighter/smaller. Same sizing ability would be good for icons too. I don't like big icons.

Bookmarks. I need bookmarks for folders, so I can access them fast.

Otherwise it's good. I'll uninstall both RE and Estrongs once your app has features I listed ) Good job!

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Thanks for suggestions, there is definitely more work to be done on the Linux/root/technical-user end of things, root access, remounting, chown and chmod being the most notable omissions.

I do want to add bookmarks, but it may be post 1.0. Not quite certain on the UI integration of these (have been thinking about a couple of different methods). One thing I think I want is the ability to add certain bookmarks directly to the home screen. As a for instance, I'd personally like /sdcard/Documents and maybe /sdcard/Download to be directly on my home screen. Too many top-level bookmarks would be quite annoying though, so likely will want two categories.

May wind up doing a mini text editor for root editing, but need to check if more powerful stuff like "Jota" support su as well.

Thanks again!

talhamid said:

Hi,

Great, great app. The curious thing with Android is that when you think "is there an app for that?", usually you stumble upon it the same day! Your app is great, fast and no-frills - I am amazed at the speed, even though both my internal and SD storage is full.

However, have you seen MIUI file manager? It also classifies apks, PDFs, and whatnot along with media. The only thing THAT is missing is SD card support for this classification, and the ability to show both storages as a whole.

I think this is where you can improve your app and make it (safely) the best file manager on Android - i.e. adding more file associations such as apks and pdfs etc. Keep improving it and someday we won't have to worry about where each file is lying.

Also the UI could use a little more polish.

Thanks for the app

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Thanks, I actually had not been previously exposed to MIUI, but after browsing YouTube a bit I see what you're talking about. I'm not certain how they're classifying the additional file categories beyond Music, Video, and Images. FX is using Android's MediaStore provider to do this. It may be that the underlying MIUI firmware has been modified to index the entirety of the filesystem, or it may be that the file manager itself is doing it (and possibly thus relying on itself being used for all modifications). Honeycomb appears to have added support for adding arbitrary files to the MediaStore but I've yet to play with it.

I do want to add the ability to place bookmarks on the FX home screen to provide immediate access to folders you use frequently (e.g. Downloads and Documents).

What phone are you using? On most phones the media indices do appear in a single database, the exception being HTC devices such as the Droid Incredible which has two completely independent databases, one for the SD card and the other for the internal user storage.

What aspects of the UI would you most like to see improved? That is, is it the actual interaction with the interface, the aesthetics (overall appearance, icons, gradients, etc), or UI performance? Are there places where you find it non-intuitive? Any suggestions appreciated!

Thanks again for the comments!

Thanks again everyone, loving the comments!

Cocolopes said:

Great work!!!! The only thing I miss is a root option...but its a great great app!!!

I have an idea...maybe like you have a swipe gesture for multiselect...you can add a swipe gesture for delete copy and paste...a cross for delete for example...

Sent from my MB525 using xda premium

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

A quicker multiselect might well be possible to implement, i.e., start by dragging horizontally and then cross through any additional items you want selected. Beyond that though we're fairly booked up with single-finger gestures given that horizontal = select and vertical = scroll, both of which have to happen immediately. Could also look at vertical double-finger swiping for (de)selecting multiple items at once in list views.

creage said:

2tliebeck: when do we expect an update?)

P.S. I fall in love with your top navigation bar - it's so amazing! It looks like Win7 one, which is really great.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Hope to have an update out in the next 24-48hr (edit: delayed a bit due to encrypted FTP fun and excitement), don't want to promise on that given that there's always bugs and testing...really don't like pushing updates unless I feel they're very solid. Have been focusing on network stuff in this next release, including FTPS support (implicit and explicit) and notification of SSH keys (and warnings for changed keys).

The next version will also be allowed to reside on the SD card, assuming it tests correctly there.