Application Android

[Romain Foucault]

Hi everybody, 

We just released the beta version of our android application.

As for now, the app allow you to browse through your files and download them on your device to open them using other android applications. 

To install it, you need to be a member of this mailing list with your play store linked google account :

https://play.google.com/apps/testing/io.cozy.files_client

We are not yet set on what would be our next features for this app. Please let us know what you want and report any bug you might find on github : 

https://github.com/mycozycloud/cozy-files-mobile/issues. 

Thanks, 

Romain

[Romain Foucault]

init message] Problem is : most of the time spent in this message is couchdb on server-side preparing the list of files & folders. Depending on your cozy's age & utilisation, it can takes up to 1 minute where the mobile app has no clue whatsoever about what's going on. That's why we can't have a progressbar and if we display the empty folder view for that long, the user might believe it is bugged. We will try to improve it once we have updated couchdb on our servers.

slowness ] The file structure is downloaded locally (in pouchdb-over-sqlite database). What device do you use ? We were thinking on improving this by prerendering subfolders in the background and add a visual clue (spinner, youtube-style loading bar) during transitions.

close side menu] Will fix, thanks

keyboard] Will fix

colors] Will fix

photos in app] I'd rather keep using external apps to limit the size & complexity of cozy app, but i need to figure a way to tell android to display a whole photo gallery or music album.

Could you develop on "would be nice to download stuff incrementally and on a "call by need" basis, I assume it would help with performance (?)". I am not quite sure i understand what you mean.

Thanks for the feedback Mihnea !

2014-04-18 23:03 GMT+02:00 Mihnea Dobrescu-Balaur <mih...@linux.com>:

Hi Romain,

Congrats on releasing the app!

A few suggestions (I'm sure you probably are aware of most of them but.. here we go):

* the initial "downloading structure" message - I'd remove it, just display the file interface directly and populate it incrementally (have a look at what dropbox on android does)

* when opening the side menu - if I click on the right (for example on a folder), it will load the new view on the right hand side but it will not close the side menu. I think when interacting with the right side while having the side menu open, the side menu should close

* the app is pretty slow (navigating through folders) - isn't the file structure downloaded locally?

* would be nice to download stuff incrementally and on a "call by need" basis, I assume it would help with performance (?)

* there is no visual feedback to tell "something is happening" while waiting for a folder to load / for displaying search results

* the keyboard remains open after searching for something

* the color scheme doesn't look like the cozy color scheme - at least on my phone, HTC One

* in the future it would be nice to be able to view photos directly in the app (maybe? not critical)

I noticed in the issues that there are plans for contacts backup and things like that. If that happens, I suggest you rename the app to "Cozy" since it will do more than just "Cozy Files".

Great job on the release!

Mihnea

[Mihnea Dobrescu-Balaur]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 9:57 AM, Romain Foucault
<romain....@cozycloud.cc> wrote:
> init message] Problem is : most of the time spent in this message is couchdb
> on server-side preparing the list of files & folders. Depending on your
> cozy's age & utilisation, it can takes up to 1 minute where the mobile app
> has no clue whatsoever about what's going on. That's why we can't have a
> progressbar and if we display the empty folder view for that long, the user
> might believe it is bugged. We will try to improve it once we have updated
> couchdb on our servers.
>

There must be a way to make it feel more responsive, I hope.

> slowness ] The file structure is downloaded locally (in pouchdb-over-sqlite
> database). What device do you use ? We were thinking on improving this by
> prerendering subfolders in the background and add a visual clue (spinner,
> youtube-style loading bar) during transitions.

HTC One, it should be a fast device. Yes, your suggestion sounds good.

>
> close side menu] Will fix, thanks
> keyboard] Will fix
> colors] Will fix
>
> photos in app] I'd rather keep using external apps to limit the size &
> complexity of cozy app, but i need to figure a way to tell android to
> display a whole photo gallery or music album.

Sounds good.

>
> Could you develop on "would be nice to download stuff incrementally and on a
> "call by need" basis, I assume it would help with performance (?)". I am not
> quite sure i understand what you mean.

Something like "don't download the contents of all folders until I
enter the respective folders". Or is it doing this already?


Cheers,
Mihnea

--
Mihnea Dobrescu-Balaur

[Romain Foucault]

As for now, it works as follow : 

The whole structure is downloaded on app initialization by sincing all "Files" and "Folder" doctypes (so only the meta-data) from couchdb to pouchdb-over-sqlite. After that, no network is involved when browsing between folders.

When you click on a file, the actual raw binary is downloaded, cached (on your SD card) and displayed. When you open the same file later, it is fetched from the SD card.

I've just released version 0.0.2 on the play store (it may take a while to appears although) with the following changes: 

- change color to cozy's

- close keyboard after search

- close side-menu when appropriate

- prefetch folder to improve snappyness

Let me know if you feel its faster.

Cheers, 

Romain

[Mihnea Dobrescu-Balaur]

Hi,

Maybe it would be possible to only sync the metadata for the current folder?

The app feels a bit faster now.

More issues:
* "turn off" in "please do not turn off app" should be "quit" or
"exit" or "close", something like that
* when logging in, that button should say something like "log in", "ok" etc.
* this update logged me out of the app so I had to relogin, but I
couldn't reuse the device name, it said that it was already in use
* scrolling doesn't work - I have a directory with multiple files and
when I try to swipe up/down, the file I touch gets selected (grey
background), but the view does not scroll. If I try scrolling again, a
different file will have a grey background as well
* would be nice for the slider menu to be "slide-able" (most android
apps seem to have this, so it's "natural") - so you could drag it from
open/closed

Good luck on the next release! :D

Mihnea

On Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 11:53 AM, Romain Foucault

--
Mihnea Dobrescu-Balaur