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nextcloud
In-App Text Editor
I would be great to be able to edit text, html, css and other text files in the app. Currently we can view the file but in order to edit, you need to share with a text editor. Thanks for any consideration.
Nextcloud android app is not all in one solution and it should stay that way. Beside it is at the core of Android ecosystem to make apps cooperate
I don't mean to imply that an entire app with a full suite of formating features should be implemented. I just meant for a basic type, delete and save ability such as you can do in the nextCloud webapp. The webapp doesn't implement any special features, it just makes it very convenient to make quick text corrections and additions.
I don't feel like that would make full featured editors any less relevant. If I'm reading a text note and I want to correct some error I detect, it would be nice to be able to do so from within the app. I understand and appreciate your need not to turn nextCloud Android into a swiss army knife.
I agree with both of you. As for easily editing of files a writable document provider might solve this to some extend. As for the in app editing I also get the point. The problem might simply be the handling of edits since we most likely would have to deal with charsets and character encodings which is always a pain and leads to a lot of bug corrupting files until you finally have a properly working version.
Another idea to this topic. Why not allow the user to manipulate the default opening behavior per file extension. An example: if I click on pictures I got shown the picture in the internal viewer. Maybe for some reason I don't like it and would love to open it by default with my favorite picture viewer. In the settings could be a map from file extension to opening behavior. That would solve all kind of different usability issues.
My default use cases would be:
- open PDFs direct in pdf-viewer
- open txt file directly in my favorite editor
- open pictures in my favorite gallery ...
Right now sure there is the same behavior if I use the "open with" function but it's three clicks, every time you open the file. Sometimes I directly open stuff from the file commander but then I need to sync or rename it, back to the client.
Hi @maxaustria,
thanks for your input. To some extend this is already working in the actual version(s)
open PDFs direct in pdf-viewer
That does already happen, but it opens in the pdf-viewer of your choice defined on the global/Android-OS level
open txt file directly in my favorite editor
That does also already happen, but it opens in the text-viewer of your choice defined on the global/Android-OS level. Difference to the pdfs is that you need to select the text file and click on the open with icon in the toolbar at the top (rectangle with the top arrow). So yeah that is already mentioned in your last paragraph.
open pictures in my favorite gallery ...
That is true. For pictures you don't have an option to open it with another app from within the Nc Android app
A general (better) solution is already in place though! We support the document provider so every app that also support this (e.g. the Adobe pdf viewer) is able to access the Nc Android app to open the files. So you don't even have to open the Nc Android app :)
Thanks for the feedback, I did some testing with NC 1.2 client on Android 4.4.4. Here is what I found. (Warning... I have to admit that I have not the best Android knowledge yet, so please don't punish me too hard if I ask wired questions ;))
PDF:
- I set default PDF app
- I try to open PDF in file commander -> opens on click in PDF viewer
- I try to open PDF in next cloud client -> it asks me which PDF viewer I wanna chose, according to you there should be no asking, any idea what I did wrong?
Txt:
- I set my default txt editor (open txt file, choose program and say always open with xyz)
- open from file commander does open txt file directly in editor like expected
- open from NC ignore it and stills displays it like before in not editable internal viewer
Talking about the picture viewer (with a already downloaded jpeg with half mb)
- open speed in own cloud client below 1sec
- open in next cloud client more then 5sec???!!
In general: putting the open in app button in the top bar is great, also the document provider i start using sometimes. You guys keep up the good work :)
@maxaustria thank you for the details and no worries, there are no weird questions!
PDF: you are right. I missed that details, b/c sometimes Android asks me if I always want to use this app to open this file type (Android N). Here it doesn't. Needs to be investigated. :+1:
TXT: same issue imho
As for the responsiveness with images. That is strange indeed. Any idea/experience with this @tobiasKaminsky @nextcloud/android ? (tested it myself and Nc was ~1 sec and oC a lot below, Android N Nexus5X).
Please open a new issue and describe it more exactly, e.g. how many files are in the folder, how big is the image, what kind is it, ...
I was referring to this
As for the responsiveness with images. That is strange indeed. Any idea/experience with this @tobiasKaminsky @nextcloud/android ? (tested it myself and Nc was ~1 sec and oC a lot below, Android N Nexus5X).
Hi everybody! I would like to describe a bit more in detail, what is imho so difficult right now about editing text files.
How I would like NC app to handle text files:
- I click (one time) on a text file in the NC app. NC opens it directly in my preferred text editor.
- I edit and save the file, then close/leave the editor.
- NC app uploads my changes quietly in the background. No user action needed. Actually this is how NC web client works, too.
What NC app works today:
- I do a long-press on the text file in the NC app
- I open the options menu (3 dots)
- I choose "open with"
- In the "open with" dialog I choose (every time again) my preferred external text editor
- I edit and save the file, then leave the editor
- in the NC app my text file is still selected, so I choose the options menu (3 dots) again
- I choose "synchronize" and NC uploads my changes.
Imho for a "simple" task like "There is a text file I want to edit quickly", there is a lot of user action needed. And a lot of mistakes a user can do, for example forgetting the final sync step so your changes are lost.
I am not an Android expert, so probably things are much more complicated than they look at first glance. Perhaps this behaviour is linked to a wider syncing problem in NC as described in this thead #757. But perhaps, as long as the overall syncing problem is not solved, an in-app text editor would be a good solution to make it simpler to edit text files.
NC android app: 1.4.2 Android version: 6.0.1
Hi there, the first post on this requested feature soon is 2 years old. I would like to ask whether there has been taken some action meanwhile to implement in-app text editing. I do appreciate your work and can only honour it by spending a beer/coffee/donation but cannot contribute any code. So, the iOS app is able to manage in-app text editing, maybe there is a possibility to use code snippets from its developer to shorten dev-time.
Thank you once again
[Android Nextcloud App 3.1.0 RC1, Android 7.1.2]
I think we should try to make the workflow as described by @spectas easier rather than featuring a built-in text editor. What can we do to improve there?
@jospoortvliet, I don't understand the point. The feature is requested by users and the iOS app has it. What is to be said against this feature?
We cannot "simply" use iOS code for android as both have different programming languages and the way they handle files, character encoding, etc. is different.
As implementing an in-app editor requires a lot of work, Jos suggested to improve the workflow and use an external text editor. It is simply a tradeoff between feature and men power.
This does not mean that this feature will never come, but priorities are not that high here...
Thank you for your cleaning up. I thought there were sorts of SDKs with which it is possible to create an app and port it to different OSs.
What a pity regarding the priority ;) but I can wait.
Thanks a lot!
I'd argue that using third party text editors is a better solution than bundling a simple text editor with the app. Could someone please help me understand why having an integrated text editor would be a good idea? Convince me and I might implement the feature.
On iOS it makes more sense since the ability to pass data back and forth between apps is rather limited compared to what you have on Android so integrating with third party text editors it not a great experience.
Having to leave the Nextcloud app to make a quick edit to a text file is a tad annoying. It requires the user to have or find a text editing app (not a problem for me but my parents and family members?).
I understand the logic behind what you're saying @ardevd about the editor on IOS but it is nice to have the same feature set on both devices. Other apps like Dropbox and I'm guessing Google Drive have an in-app text editor implemented on Android as well (they also have billions of dollars to do so 😉).
I'm extremely happy with the app either way but I think adding it would be very handy.
Currently we/I see the app mostly as a "connector" between cloud and android device, with sharing, search, ... So the scope of the app is currently to download/provide a file to an app which is capable of using it. The only exception of this is image & media.
The problem is currently men power for adding and maintaining more & more features. So my focus is now on having trash bin, comments, tags, file versioning in the app.
At some point later it is valid to extend the app with such features. I hope you understand why this is not our/my main priority.
(of course this feature remains open)
I am willing to pay for an open source in-app text editor.
Maybe there is not need to re-invent the wheel. AFAIK there are open source text editors for android. Maybe it does not need much development, but integrating existing stuff.
Maybe there is not need to re-invent the wheel. AFAIK there are open source text editors for android. Maybe it does not need much development, but integrating existing stuff.
That is done already - you can open any file in another text editor :see_no_evil: that way you can edit video, word documents, view PDF and so on.
On iOS there is now also an easy way to access files between apps so I even expect the text editor might disappear, it isn't needed anymore.
Anyway, this can of course be done, but I don't think it is smart to make a 2 gb big Nextcloud Files app that can wash your cat... I would instead suggest we automatically recommend an open source text editor if none is installed.
Not sure if this is possible, but already integrating an external editor more closely would make a difference. Right now I have to chose "open with", chose a text editor, edit the file, save it, select " synchronize" to make sure that the changes are synced back to the server. If the app would remember the last editor and trigger the synchronization automatically after save, it would be already a great improvement.
@schiessle thank you for your comment. I am very happy, that someone understands my "vision".
I agree with @schiessle I agree with @schiessle , the current situation is absolutely horrid. With Dropbox's recent device limit change, I'm quickly searching for a replacement.
Dropbox's Android client has it perfect...I tap on a .txt file, it asks me what editor I want to use, I can make it permanent, then I get dropped into a text editor, make my edits, save and exit. Done.
The Nextcloud app is not user friendly at all. I trained my kids how to use the Dropbox app very quickly to update share family notes files. There's no way I could unleash this app on my family. It's horrid.
I tried looking at the Notes App, but it only allows working with notes in a single directory. Not very useful if you have many shared folders with note files in different folders.
Please reconsider your priorities.
So it appears if you have a file with .odt extension, this works fairly well. But .odt files don't work on the iOS or web clients. Would it be a big deal to recognize .txt files the same as .odt files are? It appears there's an internal editor now, the .txt file type just needs to be recognized.
odt are opened in collabora, and this is also possible on web / iOS.
Text files can be opened with an external app (like you did with Dropbox) via three dots -> open with
@tobiasKaminsky I think they would also like to remember the choice for subsequent actions, so they don't have to Open With and select the app each time.
I think this is pretty easy to implement by scanning available mime type handlers and saving it in preferences.
Not sure about UI.
@tobiasKaminsky I think they would also like to remember the choice for subsequent actions, so they don't have to Open With and select the app each time.
Right, we can implement this. Best is to open up a new issue for this and ping nextcloud/designer group for design help. But I assume that this is a standard component of Android.