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

[osm0sis]

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Cloud Storage:
Talking about Cloud Storage, I have 3 items in mine, Box, Dropbox & Google Drive. Of these, I can only access Dropbox, the other two say 'Access was denied'

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I've always found Cloud Storage in FX can get periodically deauth'ed, so try removing the denied accounts and re-adding; usually works for me.

 

[techguyone]

I've always found Cloud Storage in FX can get periodically deauth'ed, so try removing the denied accounts and re-adding; usually works for me.

Thanks, I did that and it works now.

I've also had another update to the app but nothing has changed, still can't see any files in the images/videos/music-audio folders, and webaccess shortcut only works correctly if FX is already running.

@tliebeck

 

[tliebeck]

FX 9.0.0.8 Released (Release Candidate)

9.0.0.7 was unfortunately a bit of a turd in one aspect. If you say "No" to the notification permission it goes into an infinite loop. This is because we demand the permission to constantly send you annoying advertising spam notifications, and feel that anyone with the gall to decline should be severely punished. Well, at least according to some Play Store reviews.

9.0.0.8 fixes the problem, you can now decline notifications. Bear in mind FX's notifications are only for file-transfer operations or to notify that things like Web Access are active. But nevertheless quite sorry to anyone inconvenienced by that obnoxious bug.

Here's 9.0.0.8:

Full version: http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r9008/FX_r9008.apk

Micro version: http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r9008/FXmicro_r9008.apk

Also on Play Store beta channel.

 

[tliebeck]

FX 9.0.1.0 Released (Release Candidate)

This contains some very minor bugfixes, mainly correcting text-editor Save-As menu crash. If all goes well this will go to production once it incubates for a few days in beta.

Download here or on Play Store beta channel (when approved):

Full version: http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r9010/FX_r9010.apk

Micro version: http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r9010/FXmicro_r9010.apk

 

[techguyone]

@tliebeck

I wonder if I'm doing something wrong, or if FX is in some way broken. (this is the very new one)

Lets take Music/Audio icon as shown on the home screen of FX, this one lets you select the folder where it should look for audio files.
In my case its SDCard/Music yet of my roughly 1.5k of songs, not one shows. I do get some items like ringtones, notifications that are stored in main storage though.

Images & Videos icons just don't show me anything (yes most imagers are in SDCard but some are in main storage for example: Main Storage/Pictures contains some 40+ image files of varying sorts.

I don't see anywhere in settings where you can tell FX where to look for those items though.
I know SDCards are a vanishing breed but is FX now not capable of looking in it for items (is it a permissions thing?) Huawei P30 Pro (Android 10) but as it stands it's pointless me even having those items showing on the home screen of FX as handy shortcuts because they won't find anything.

Storage (memory Card) is mounted and the circle widget gives a breakdown of Images/Videos/Audio/Documents etc just fine.

Anyone else here reading this, can you conform if you can see anything in Music, Images, Videos shortcuts in Home FX and if you have a SDCard or not, thanks.

 

[osm0sis]

FX 9.0.1.0 Released (Release Candidate)

This contains some very minor bugfixes, mainly correcting text-editor Save-As menu crash. If all goes well this will go to production once it incubates for a few days in beta.

Download here or on Play Store beta channel (when approved):

Full version: http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r9010/FX_r9010.apk

Micro version: http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r9010/FXmicro_r9010.apk

Did FX intentionally drop the Location permission? I notice it doesn't show WiFi location anymore on Android 13.

 

[thedicemaster]

@tliebeck

I wonder if I'm doing something wrong, or if FX is in some way broken. (this is the very new one)

Lets take Music/Audio icon as shown on the home screen of FX, this one lets you select the folder where it should look for audio files.
In my case its SDCard/Music yet of my roughly 1.5k of songs, not one shows. I do get some items like ringtones, notifications that are stored in main storage though.

Images & Videos icons just don't show me anything (yes most imagers are in SDCard but some are in main storage for example: Main Storage/Pictures contains some 40+ image files of varying sorts.

I don't see anywhere in settings where you can tell FX where to look for those items though.
I know SDCards are a vanishing breed but is FX now not capable of looking in it for items (is it a permissions thing?) Huawei P30 Pro (Android 10) but as it stands it's pointless me even having those items showing on the home screen of FX as handy shortcuts because they won't find anything.

Storage (memory Card) is mounted and the circle widget gives a breakdown of Images/Videos/Audio/Documents etc just fine.

Anyone else here reading this, can you conform if you can see anything in Music, Images, Videos shortcuts in Home FX and if you have a SDCard or not, thanks.

there's no way to tell FX where to look because FX doesn't control what's shown there.
it's populated by the media scanner of Android, so it should pick up on any file that android itself has found(movies and photos visible in gallery, music visible in the default music app)

if FX asks you for a folder it means it's asking for permission to access a storage device, you have to grant it permission for the root of the storage device.
this screen is part of android's storage access permission system.
you may have given FX access to a single folder as if it's the entire sdcard, making it only possible to see that single folder and confusing FX about the location of files.

 

[leprechaun.ut]

tliebeck The local video files will be regarded as video stream when the video is executed via FX, and the media player always do buffering. The same video file executed in other file manager app works OK.

FX ver: 9.0.1.0
OS ver: Android 13
Phone: Google Pixel 5

 

[jsonfile]

Does anybody else have problems with fx connect not finding other devices. Am on LG k61 with android 11 and just updated to 9.0.1.0 but the problem is still there.

 

[tliebeck]

Did FX intentionally drop the Location permission? I notice it doesn't show WiFi location anymore on Android 13.

Yes, with 13 Android finally allows requesting "nearby devices" instead of location for WiFi direct connections. You should be able to use FX Connect without location being on as well (on 13+ devices). FX never actually used / attempted to obtain location.

Only took them 3 years to change this (which is actually impressively quick for a privacy problem of this nature): https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/139696001

 

[techguyone]

there's no way to tell FX where to look because FX doesn't control what's shown there.
it's populated by the media scanner of Android, so it should pick up on any file that android itself has found(movies and photos visible in gallery, music visible in the default music app)

if FX asks you for a folder it means it's asking for permission to access a storage device, you have to grant it permission for the root of the storage device.
this screen is part of android's storage access permission system.
you may have given FX access to a single folder as if it's the entire sdcard, making it only possible to see that single folder and confusing FX about the location of files.

I'm sorry and this is really directed at @tliebeck but those folders should have options in settings (like music does) to tell FX where to look for media etc rather than hoping that media scanner works. Settings > Special folders should be expanded to also include Images & Videos.

That said, Music DOES have an option in settings to select a folder, which I've picked, and it shows correctly as the root folder for music, yet in the shortcut itself, it completely ignores this and shows nothing that's on the SDCard.
This to me, is a bug.

 

[tliebeck]

I'm sorry and this is really directed at @tliebeck but those folders should have options in settings (like music does) to tell FX where to look for media etc rather than hoping that media scanner works. Settings > Special folders should be expanded to also include Images & Videos.

That said, Music DOES have an option in settings to select a folder, which I've picked, and it shows correctly as the root folder for music, yet in the shortcut itself, it completely ignores this and shows nothing that's on the SDCard.
This to me, is a bug.

FX doesn't actually look for music in the specified folder, it simply filters out audio files from the media scanner that are not within that folder. The idea of that option is to get rid of things like podcasts (which can be separately accessed) or annoying content like saved voicemails.

Images/Video/Music are all media scanner based.

The FX search database does have some of this information, but it's presently not as good as Android media database. It's not investigating files for metadata (e.g. querying ID3 tags).

 

[techguyone]

FX doesn't actually look for music in the specified folder, it simply filters out audio files from the media scanner that are not within that folder. The idea of that option is to get rid of things like podcasts (which can be separately accessed) or annoying content like saved voicemails.

Images/Video/Music are all media scanner based.

The FX search database does have some of this information, but it's presently not as good as Android media database. It's not investigating files for metadata (e.g. querying ID3 tags).

Thanks for the information, perhaps having my files mainly on SDCard isn't helping, I think I'll simply delete the shortcuts for music/audio/pictures as they don't actually work and watch this space for any changes to FX in that regard.

 

[osm0sis]

Yes, with 13 Android finally allows requesting "nearby devices" instead of location for WiFi direct connections. You should be able to use FX Connect without location being on as well (on 13+ devices). FX never actually used / attempted to obtain location.

Only took them 3 years to change this (which is actually impressively quick for a privacy problem of this nature): https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/139696001

@tliebeck Nice! Is it still supposed to show the WiFi network name though? Because that seems to be missing now.

 

[kevinco1]

In the last few versions, whenever I make ZIPs they are always at least twice the size in comparison to other file managers.

Not sure if this has something to do with compression algorithm?

 

[osm0sis]

@tliebeck, looks like this will be needed for Android 14:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1635686822218022912

 

[aleMarvel]

but why with this app i have message "Access was denied" with folder android\data and with others files manager worked ?

 

[saoudien07]

but why with this app i have message "Access was denied" with folder android\data and with others files manager worked ?

go through: Root/Data/Media/0/Android/Data

that folder was already no more accessible on A12 through Internal Storage.

 

[evalf]

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[evalf]

Hi tliebeck,

Thanks for the update. One issue I've noticed on the RC as well as the other beta versions you posted here is FX doesn't seem to be able to be able to open file types with their system defined default app. For example when opening a pdf it will prompt me every time to choose which app to open it with, even though I have a default app for pdf set up, that is recognised by other file managers, and that used to be recognised by the older non beta versions of FX.

I reported this issue back in September but it is still ongoing in the latest version of FX. Is there a plan to fix file type association handling at some stage?