[Waldbaer]

Nice to read that I’m not the only user taking advantage of the new features. Hm, as a Windows user, I don‘t really see an additional advantage of a custom file picker over an explorer window which is attached to a side, though. Are you speaking about Android (don’t use it myself, so I have very limited knowledge) or Windows?

[BRX]

> Nice to read that I’m not the only user taking advantage of the new features. 

Well, since I requested a few of those (especially the unknown files thing for smart buttons), of course. :-)

> Hm, as a Windows user, I don‘t really see an additional advantage of a custom file picker over an explorer window which is attached to a side, though. Are you speaking about Android (don’t use it myself, 
> so I have very limited A knowledge) or Windows?

I'm using it both, the W10 version with a surface and a PC desktop and the Android one with a Sony tablet and mobile.
You're right, that for you on Windows there may be no big difference to using the explorer. But I think Mike would prefer to and should have a workflow from within MSP which is the same or at least similar on W10 and Android (and at some point IOS).

[Waldbaer]

I understand your point. On a device without a file explorer on the same screen, an internal solution of course makes sense and keeping the different versions as similar as possible is an important goal, too. It's just some more work than the other features requested here, I think... Mike will probably decide wisely when to do what. ;-)

[Zubersoft]

A file explorer attached to the side would be a significant effort. The current file browser was based off an open source library that has been continuously modified for MobileSheetsPro. It's based around having a completely separate activity that starts a foreground service to asynchronously handle displaying the list of files, whether it be from a local storage location or the cloud. In order to attach a file explorer like what you are describing, I would either have to copy the existing file browser and modify it to work as a fragment that can support drag & drop to other parts of the screen (no idea how difficult that is or if it's possible with the Android framework), or implement something completely new which would take a long time. I'm not saying it can't be done, I just think there are other things I should prioritize right now as there are many other ways to import files into MobileSheetsPro right now. I'm also not sure how feasible it is to even display an attached file browser as most tablets are around 10 inches, and that doesn't leave much room for a functional browser.

Mike

[BRX]

Mike, I'm okay with that. I thought that a common architecture and workflow between the OSes would be something you are looking for. But if
it's to complex and you're allowing differences anyway (and I guess IOS will be a completely different beast anyway) then I'm completely satisfied with drag and drop
in Windows since I do most of my file operations for MSP at my W10 desktop anyway.

[itsme]

The issue seems for me, that navigating within the Android file system is rather complicated, with pretty long paths that are hard to remember.

Currently MSP remembers the last path that has been used and the file browser for the next file system operation starts from there. This becomes inconvenient when we have to switch between folders that are typically "far away", e.g. scores in internal memory / audio on SD card, scores in internal memory / backup on SD card and so on.

How about remembering several paths?
While opening a file browser the list of paths could be shown, the user selects one of them and the file browser starts from there.
The list of paths could be filled e.g.
- automatically with "recently used" paths (this seems the simplest solution and probably should be good enough)
- automatically by storing the recently used paths for certain file operations: local import of a score, CSV import, export, backup, add audio ...
- manually by the user by navigating to his favorite paths and storing them (maybe the most convenient and most flexible solution as soon as the favorites are set)


Just an idea for further discussion - what do you think?

[Waldbaer]

I feel kind of sorry to have still wishes connected to the d&d-support and smart buttons, but I hope they will be useful and not too difficult to implement:

1. I found out that smart buttons for files created by d&d will open the file read-only. This does not happen if I create the button manually using the list, so it would be great if you could fix it (I use it e.g. for having the score at hand at a rehearsal while using MSP with my part, but I'd like to be able to annotate the score anyways).
   
2. a) Sometimes it would be great to be able to open a folder in explorer via smart button (many files at hand and no path fixing if some of them change their name). At the moment, this is not possible via adding a button manually (since the dialogue will insist in choosing a file to continue) and if I d&d a folder just nothing happens. Maybe you could add this?
   b) Alternatively, I could imagine to have a function like "show currently viewed file in explorer" available for the touch actions. For me, this would mostly do the same or at least I would easily be able to add shortcuts there. It's surely much faster than call overlay | edit | files list | info | show (5 taps and still 3 more to go back to your music).
   Of course nobody will have a problem if you implement both ways, too, I think, but maybe you have even further ideas connected to this.

[Zubersoft]

1. I dragged and dropped a text file on my score to create a button. I then tapped the button which loaded notepad. I modified the file in notepad and saved it. It was definitely not read-only. So if you are having problems with files being read-only, I'm going to need specific details about what application you are working with, what file type, etc.

2. I'm adding support for URLs to smart buttons in the next update. You can use either "file://Path to folder" or just "Path to folder" and MobileSheets will launch explorer for that folder.

Mike

[Waldbaer]

1. Hm, I have the problem with PDFs. May it be a problem, that the files are in the MSP-database folder? They are not part of the database of MSP though, and as I said if I create the smart buttons manually, the problem does not occur. If I just locate the files in explorer and double click, it opens without restrictions. I tested a text file and it did not have the problem, just as you described. I changed the default PDF viewer, but both of them had the same problem. Maybe you can reproduce the problem using PDFs?
2. Sounds great, I'll definitely make use of that.

[Zubersoft]

I just tested linking to a PDF in the default storage location, opened that file through adobe acrobat, edited it, saved it, and encountered no issues. I'm still not sure why it's read-only for you... What application are you opening the PDF in?

Thanks,
Mike

[Waldbaer]

Hi Mike,
thanks for testing! I tried both Adobe Reader Touch and Xodo. Interesting that you cannot reproduce this issue; seems to be a quite individual problem then... I tried again and now even once working buttons Open readonly and sometimes the other way round. My first idea of an explanation definitely does not seem to be the problem. At the moment I cannot find any rule at all. 

[Zubersoft]

Are you opening pdfs that have been loaded in MobileSheetsPro through a song or setlist? Those pdfs would most likely be locked and therefore read only.