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This has been bothering me for quite a while, so I conjured a little story to help sooth my frustration.
Lets say my Android device is the new tenant of a nicely formated loft, this loft being 16gb of square space. To commemorate this new exciting space my device throws a house party. Most of the Apps he invites are pretty well behaved, but some start spilling drinks, then puking on the carpet, then having an orgy, then bukkake-ing the root directory. After discovering such acts, the device politely requests the disruptive guests force quit and leave. "I need more space on my phone." the device replied as each questioned on their way out. To his disbelief, NONE of the Apps cleaned up their mess! Even worse it seems some of the classier Apps, though more organized seem to have been influenced too. Unfortunately the device is forced to live with it, as the police force stopped responding to calls in his neighborhood. One man tries, but it always returns to a mess.
I hope that entertained someone.
i know exactly how you feel... there is at least 7 unused folders just wasting space on my phone. not to mention random mp3's hidden deep within my phone...
PhxkinMassacre said:
i know exactly how you feel... there is at least 7 unused folders just wasting space on my phone. not to mention random mp3's hidden deep within my phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope you understand about the unused folders and NOT the bukkake-ing!!
hello, nice story!
I won't say that I am even close to being a developer but I do develop some apps and the thing that I wan't to point out is that apps do not run when they are installed or uninstalled. It's not each application job to clear up the mess it may have created but package manager's which apparently leaves some files be just in case you would like to reinstall the app later(?)...
I would propose to look for a more efficient package manager or doorman/janitor for your loft
That's why I don't invite the guy whos only existence is to make farting noises!
Very good point. However, one thing I don't know is if uninstalling through the market cleans up the SD card better than using a third party mass uninstall app. Something you may want to experiment with.
Back at it again...
Here I am again, and I still don't flippin get it!
After reading some of your comments I realized my main point kind of got glazed over(no pun intended @Scudderb)
My big issue is that there's no hierarchy in place for this crap. In windows, program files are stored in the 'Program Files' directory. In Android (and I credit google and the developers for this sloppy BS) Apps are just throwing all their **** in with my stuff on the ROOT.
How is this acceptable. Seriously, HOW? And if its all cache files and/or temporary documents than WHY THE **** ISN'T ALL THIS CRAP BEING PUT INTO A TEMP/CACHE FOLDER.
I'm PISSED! Why does every app I install get to put their own folder on the ROOT WITH the FOLDERS and FILES that actually matter to me ex: like my music, pictures, movies, documents (OH and by the way, a lot of apps developers do a REALLY ****ty job with their NAMING CONVENTIONS so the folders being created may or may not even look related to the app that put it there!)
::end rant::
My apologies for the colorful language, folder structure and hierarchy are something I design as a web designer so when I see this crap going on in my phone like the inmates are running the asylum... I get angry.
Today I was cleaning up my SD card for the umteen'th time, and found that Foursquare was dumping its temp files directly onto the root of my directory. I blew my top and had to get it out of my system... so..
A MESSAGE TO ALL THE APPS PULLING THESE SHENANIGANS: GROW UP!
The problem here is that it's hard to do it right
For custom data, files are supposed to be saved into "/data/data/com.appname/blah" (that's from the top of my head, could differ slightly). That's the directory to use for data files, but there's one big issue with it: it's on the internal memory storage. We all know that internal memory on Android (without custom ROMs) is.. limited. That's probably why most devs are using SD for larger files.
There's also the "Android/data/com.package_name.blah/blah" directory on the SD card. This directory should be used by apps to store files into and is automatically deleted when the user removes the associated app (but only when you're running Froyo or greater).
The issue with this approach is that users (and developers too, when testing the app) will lose all their data when removing an old version of a specific app. Let's say there's a bug with the Market again and the app suddenly gets uninstalled. User will have to reinstall, result: data will be all gone. That's only one of the many doom scenarios.
I can't speak for other developers, but that's more or less the reason why I started to use a common directory outside of the preferred ones when I was doing apps. It's not a great situation, I fully agree. But would you rather have your data accidentally deleted?
If anyone knows a good way to get around this issue, I'd love to know more about it...
orly
Thanks for the reply @Stripeymilk
I can think of multiple solutions:
#1 Development community adopts a universal directory for files deemed 'User' or 'Save' data that should be stored for future use. (or Google creates this for developers)
#2 Development community adopts the practice of allowing users to pick the directory users want to store an apps data in. (prompt at app's first start)
#3 Store files/data in the cloud.
#4 Users dump trash in the lobbys/living-rooms of developer's and see how quickly they find a solution.
#5 USE THE "Android/data/com.package_name.blah/" FOLDER WHEN ALL YOU'RE REALLY DOING IS STORING CACHE/TEMP FILES!!!
BOTTOM LINE: Its not hard to do it right, Its just hard to get people to do it.
You make it sound so easy
1) I'm all for it, but Google needs to put its weight behind an approach like that because otherwise people will say "I like /Data better than /data or /Mydata or /MyData". It's a bit like coding conventions: everyone wants to be different.
2) Good for techy people, not so good for "normal" users. Could make it easier with a small "file manager", but that's too much work for indie devs. Could be a nice idea for a new open source project though.
3) Great idea, could actually work if the associated account would be created automatically (like in Cut the Rope for Android with Scoreloop), but:
- The backup functionality in Android for storing data in the cloud is available for API level 8 and greater, making it of not so much use when you're targeting API level 5 or 6 and greater. Could be fixed by using something like Google Storage combined with Jets3t instead, but that would be useless for apps written in C++, like many games are.
- Cloud storage isn't free. Developers can't pay for that as it would be too expensive. If every Android user would've gotten free cloud storage from Google it could be a nice alternative, but (yeah, there's always a but) most current users don't have that.
4) If you're prepared to send your trash by plane to another country, go for it!
5) Agreed. Useful for temp data.
I'm not trying to make it sound easy, believe me I know how it isn't. I'm trying to make it sound simple, because really.. it is...
In response:
1) I agree and this is exactly what I mean by the real hard part is getting people to do it. This requires widespread endorsement by developers big and small - that this is a 'best practice' that should be adhered to. I think the gate swings both ways though.
example: Twitter didn't invent hash tags, their users did, and with its widespread adoption, Twitter adopted/implemented it too.
2) Another good point, though this process can be curated to drive the user in the right direction (holding their hand). The XBOX 360 does this for every game you play, the first thing it does is ask you which storage device you want to use for game saves.
example: in combination with solution # 1, the default folder the app saves to could be '/data/theAppsName' and the prompt could say "This app saves files to your SD CARD in '/data/theAppName'. Would you like to choose a new location?" [Yes] [No] [?]. The [Yes] option brings up a simple file manager, the [No] option uses that location, the [?] option brings up an easy to understand write up on what its asking and why its asking it.
3) We'll get there eventually, my point really was if you've got the resources, why not. Its a solution better than #1 and #2
4) I plan on sending human clones to create trash individually and exponentially
5) AMIRITE~!
In all seriousness though, thank you @Stripeymilk for taking the time to go in depth and have a conversation about this. I seriously think it doesn't take an act of Godogle to solve this (to what I beleive) is a big issue!
I can't agree more with you.
As developer (Windows, iSeries) I try to make my programs as structured and readable as possible. The same goes for the files and folders used used by the programs, but sadly, even with all the available resources, some people (colleagues) make a complete mess of it, cause "that's not/less important", as long as the program does what it's intended to do ...
It's all about the resources and people using them the right way!
Cool, didn't know about the hash tags on Twitter
Well, we're on a great site here with developers on it. If everyone here would adhere to the same standard, it could at least be a nice push to make the Android SD card world a better place.
What's the directory we're going to settle on? Any pros and cons?
Having some spare time in Christmas holidays and after having used and experimented with my GNote 10.1 for about 3 months I thought about making some clean up and streamlining with all the apps I've tried and tested till now.
I've found that I've about 160 apps (of which about 50 apps can be considered as default apps already present in the pristine tablet).
Many are duplicate or alternatives for some "ideal" (but yet "non-fully satisfactory") apps...
I mean... I've 6 different file manager apps, 4 drawing apps, 12 note taking apps, 6 office apps and so on.
I think I'll keep many of them (even if duplicates of each other) for some time until I can judge what is better and what's not, to choose the best ones for my needs and also to see if the developers are making progresses (or if the app's development has practically stopped).
To understand better what I have and what I might choose or discard for each activity (note taking, office etc.) I've made a categorization in Excel (in my PC).
But I thought also there could be some (meta) app to organize and categorize apps inside the tablet itself.
After some search I think that Auto App Organizer could be the one.
It allows to categorize all apps and to navigate to them by browsing the categories. I think this could be much better and more convenient than creating category folders through the launcher.
Does anyone use it? Is there any other advisable alternative?
i want to delete all history and most recently used files in the pdf viewer metro app on the surface. i can not find on the pro where these lists are kept so that i can delete them and also to stop them making these lists.
this is the only metro app i use , i do everything via the desktop .
hope someone knows where they hide this info.
if this should be in the win8 forum please move.
many thanks.
win8.1 surface pro 1
It should probably be in the Win8 general forum, yeah, since it has nothing to do with Surface devices per se.
With that said, unless it's an option in the Settings for the app (open the app, then use the Settings charm), the only way that I know of to do this is to remove and re-install the app. That's obviously a pain, and not really sustainable. You could scrub it manually - it'll be stored in local app data, almost certainly, so a script could take care of it easily - but that's kind of a pain to write...
I have a Note 10.1 2014 and have just picked up a Note Pro 12.2. While I am still debating whether to keep both and if not, which one to keep, I have run across an issue I ran into a long time ago. I am trying to keep LectureNotes synced between the two devices, and as happened with my original note and HTC Flyer (used only for backup purposes), using DropSync to keep both devices in sync with each other, causes an occasional delete on one device which seems to propagate to the other device. I have again lost a couple very important notebooks.
What is the best way to keep two devices in sync with each other? Perhaps I am not setting dropsync up correctly, are there suggestions for that? Perhaps there is a better / safer app than dropsync ..... Any and all suggestions appreciated.
I use FolderSync to do this. It has more flexibility to set up multiple sync processes so you can both sync and back up.
I have two sync folders in the cloud connected to my lecture notes folder, controlled by three "pairs".
The first pair does full sync, deletes included, two way. This is echoed on my phone so everything matches.
The second pair is a one way sync from the tablet to the cloud, no delete. This is the backup folder. So if the above situation causes a loss, the backup folder comes to the rescue.
The third pair is really same target folder as the second, but is one way delete only and manual only. Every week or so I confirm that I haven't lost anything from the sync folder, then run this to delete stuff I really wanted to get rid of. This one is optional if you go with a never delete backup approach.
Sent from my GT-N8013 using Tapatalk
Reason for deletion - FEATURE REQUEST
Hi, I have done some tests and discovered why the sync problem occurs:
When inserting, deleting or moving pages in LectureNotes, the app simply renames the .png files in its system, but it doesn't change their "modified date".
For example, let's take the following scenario: You have pages P1, P2, P3. All created 12:00. You have used a sync program to sync these pages (two-way) to Google Drive. Their modified date in Google Drive will be 12:01 lets say, since you sync every minute as an example.
At 12:02 lets say you delete P2. What LectureNotes will actually do in this scenario is simply to rename P3 to P2, and it will delete P3. But P2 modified date will not be set to 12:02, instead it will remain at 12:00.
In the next sync cycle (let's say 12:03), the sync program will see that P2 in LectureNotes and P2 in Google Drive do not match. It will look at the latest modified date, and see that the P2 in Google Drive has a later modified date (12:01, vs. LectureNotes' P2 which has 12:00). Hence, it will copy over P2 from Google Drive and overwrite your P2 in LectureNotes.
So what you end up with is: In LectureNotes you will now have the P2 which is actually the original P2 you created previously, and the P3 you created will have disappeared.
I have attached a .png file (created in LectureNotes ) to illustrate the problem.
How to fix the problem:
The easiest way to fix the problem and allow people to seamlessly sync between multiple devices and cloud services etc. is to edit the modified date of the .png files when adding, inserting or moving pages.
(For example if I have P1, P2, P3 and move P2 to after P3, LectureNotes today simply renames the files to reflect their relative order - page2.png will be renamed to page3.png and vice versa - but no modified date is changed, which causes sync program to overwrite the files).
I have thought about various options, but there is today no automatic way (unless you want to use the previously suggested manual backup, checking etc. strategies) to create a seamless sync. The workarounds that exist today with the above limitation are:
1) Use only 1-way sync (which means you will just have a back-up system, not a sync system - meaning you can't sync between multiple devices)
OR
2) Don't use the move, insert and delete pages functions. This will make sync between multiple devices work, but is a severe limitation since you won't be able to delete any pages in any of your notebooks.
@[email protected]: You are right, LectureNotes renames files upon page deletion and insertion without updating the last modified date of the renamed file.
I am a bit surprised to hear that this causes problems with syncing. Actually, I would expect a syncing tool to be smart enough to handle cases of simple file renaming within a directory.
I could modify LectureNotes such that it sets the last modified date to the current date for each file it renames. But this could cause huge network traffic. For instance, assume that you have a 100 pages notebook and your insert a page before the first page. If LectureNotes sets the last modified date to the current date for each file it renames, all 101 pages will be sent over the network.
acadoid said:
@[email protected]: You are right, LectureNotes renames files upon page deletion and insertion without updating the last modified date of the renamed file.
I am a bit surprised to hear that this causes problems with syncing. Actually, I would expect a syncing tool to be smart enough to handle cases of simple file renaming within a directory.
I could modify LectureNotes such that it sets the last modified date to the current date for each file it renames. But this could cause huge network traffic. For instance, assume that you have a 100 pages notebook and your insert a page before the first page. If LectureNotes sets the last modified date to the current date for each file it renames, all 101 pages will be sent over the network.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for responding.
I understand. Is it possible to fix the sync issue in other ways? Do you know any other syncing tool which handles this? I am using the tool called "FolderSync" and I would have expected it to be a good tool.
There are some options in it, such as "Use MD5 checksums" (default checked), "Use temp-file scheme" (default checked) and "Disable file-size check" (default unchecked) in it, would you expect that changing some of these may help?
If you are not aware of another syncing tool, would there be another way of modifying LectureNotes to make sync work without causing the problem you mention.
Actually files are quite small so I would not expect there to be a large network traffic, and moving/deleting and inserting pages is a quite rare occurrence, so I think it would be a good solution anyway. Currently, not being able to use any of these functions if you want to sync is a severe limitations (however I will still keep LectureNotes because it is the best tool in the market - I have tested Samsung S Note, FiiNote, Papyrus and many others but LectureNotes is simply the best and I really don't want to leave it).
Thanks for helping, and very much appreciate your comments. I would be happy to give you a 5-star review on Android market also.
@[email protected]: I do not use this app (or any other syncing app), so I cannot say much concerning your questions.
I do not know which algorithm this syncing app applies, but syncing solely based on last modified date is not a particularly good idea (in particular under Android, where the last modified date is notoriously unreliable), as being able to handle file renaming properly is crucial.
As I stated in my previous post, LectureNotes could set the last modified date whenever it renames a file. I would not like to make this the new default behavior, but I can add this as an option. I just uploaded v2.5.3 into the app stores (and I also need to think a moment about the implications of such change), so that I have to ask you for some patience.
Thank you, having this as an option would be fantastic. Please let me know what you decide and if you do upload a new version with this option.
I have done some research, and the app developer for this sync app says that it doesn't detect renames because that is instable and would cause battery drain:
groups.google . com / forum / embed / ?parenturl=http%3A%2F%2F www .tacit.dk%2Fforum&service=jotspot&ul=1&theme=default&place=forum%2Ftacitdynamics&showpopout=true&showsearch=true#!searchin/tacitdynamics/renaming/tacitdynamics/wdeDfI1a-Ks/vA45y0a8fJMJ
[This forum prevents posting links until a new user has at least 10 posts so I had to insert white spaces into the link - please remove white spaces so the link works.]
So it seems like this is exactly what is causing the problem.
I will research if there are other apps that detect renames, but with the above comments i doubt it and your "option to update modified date" would be greatly appreciated.
Solution found!!
Hi, I have tested the app "Autosync for Google Drive" developed by ttxapps and this solves the problem!
I have tested this:
1. Create P1, P2, P3 - sync
2. Delete P2 - sync
3. Insert P2(new) between P1 and P3 - sync
In all 3 steps, Drive Autosync behaved perfectly, replicating exactly on Google Drive what happened (while FolderSync - the old app - failed both step 2 and step 3 because of the issue I described previously.
Thank you for your quick responses.
@[email protected]: OK, thanks for the feedback, glad to hear that you could solve the problem.
I know this post is a little old at this point, but I've recently been testing the same thing,trying to get lecture notes to sync between two samain note devices. I'be tested with both dropsync and drive autosync and neither seem to be able to decipher how to sync lecture notes reliably. I get all kinds of anomalies like missing pages, missing text, page additions instead of overwrites.
At this point it looks like manual backups and restores are the only option. To that end it might be handy to have an auto backup function that dumps backup files to a synced folder at least. It's not super awesome,but I don't any other way to get my notes synced up. Lecture Notes is the best note tool on android so imuch definitely not going to stop using it!
If anyone has new ideas I'd love to hear them.
I use BTSync and I have never had any problem with sync between my Note 3/ Note 10.1, plus I have a copy of files on my PC through BTSync pc app.
Has anyone tried syncing notebooks with Syncthing?
Old, but interesting thread...
Witch app(s) will sync Lecture Notes... today in 2020...?
So a couple years ago I got my first android phone, and it included 25gb of dropbox free for 2 years. I didn't care much for cloud storage back then because it still didn't work that well. The dropbox app back then was pretty much garbage, all it did was give you a slightly cleaner interface for the website version (which also just is not very useful for my purposes).
All I want to do is sync/mirror my music library, so when I download a song on my pc, it eventually shows up on my phone to be played. Maybe that was harder to do a couple years ago, but today that seems like a pretty simple thing with how much free/cheap cloud storage there is and how fast our devices are.
Yet I just spent the last day messing with drop box (while my 2 free years ran out Galaxy S5 which luckily gave me another 2 years of dropbox, this time at 50gb), and also tried the other stuff my new phone came with, and seemingly none of them actually can sync anything. They talk all about that, yet the mobile apps are still terrible. Dropbox, box and even tried samsung link. None of them care to sync anything onto your phone, they just offer convenient/single file only access.
I found dropbox folder downloader, so I could at least get my initial library in with that.. Of course even that didn't work at first - since the S5 comes with little storage - my music library was 11gb - and the S5 only has about 9gb free with all the bloat samsung loads it up with. (9gb free for a $900 phone, thanks samsung) . Anyways i had a 32gb sd card laying around i got for free years ago, so I should be good to go. Nope... 4.4 doesn't allow you to write to your sd card in any useful fashion. Anyways I got that fixed, and its currently downloading my library.
My question is:
How can I make this easier. I mean next time I want to do that again, it takes several hours.. (it will be faster next time since it would just have to check each file rather then download them all, but still likely slow).
All i want is a simple cloud storage that does what people generally think it does - fully sync my stuff between my devices. Is there any service (with both pc and mobile apps) out there that does this?
Preferably a way I can get dropbox to do it, but I'll pay for a different service/app if theres a better way.
Eleventeen128 said:
So a couple years ago I got my first android phone, and it included 25gb of dropbox free for 2 years. I didn't care much for cloud storage back then because it still didn't work that well. The dropbox app back then was pretty much garbage, all it did was give you a slightly cleaner interface for the website version (which also just is not very useful for my purposes).
All I want to do is sync/mirror my music library, so when I download a song on my pc, it eventually shows up on my phone to be played. Maybe that was harder to do a couple years ago, but today that seems like a pretty simple thing with how much free/cheap cloud storage there is and how fast our devices are.
Yet I just spent the last day messing with drop box (while my 2 free years ran out Galaxy S5 which luckily gave me another 2 years of dropbox, this time at 50gb), and also tried the other stuff my new phone came with, and seemingly none of them actually can sync anything. They talk all about that, yet the mobile apps are still terrible. Dropbox, box and even tried samsung link. None of them care to sync anything onto your phone, they just offer convenient/single file only access.
I found dropbox folder downloader, so I could at least get my initial library in with that.. Of course even that didn't work at first - since the S5 comes with little storage - my music library was 11gb - and the S5 only has about 9gb free with all the bloat samsung loads it up with. (9gb free for a $900 phone, thanks samsung) . Anyways i had a 32gb sd card laying around i got for free years ago, so I should be good to go. Nope... 4.4 doesn't allow you to write to your sd card in any useful fashion. Anyways I got that fixed, and its currently downloading my library.
My question is:
How can I make this easier. I mean next time I want to do that again, it takes several hours.. (it will be faster next time since it would just have to check each file rather then download them all, but still likely slow).
All i want is a simple cloud storage that does what people generally think it does - fully sync my stuff between my devices. Is there any service (with both pc and mobile apps) out there that does this?
Preferably a way I can get dropbox to do it, but I'll pay for a different service/app if theres a better way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I find that Google drive is pretty good for syncing to different devices. I use it for certain files so maybe you could try that to see if it works for you.
A_Bunny said:
Well I find that Google drive is pretty good for syncing to different devices. I use it for certain files so maybe you could try that to see if it works for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea I've used drive lots too. It doesn't sync anything to android.
Google drive is pretty much exactly like dropbox in functionality.. It will only sync to desktop, the mobile app doesn't do it.
The only automatic function it has, is auto image backup to drive, and the drive app itself doesn't do that, the google+ app does. And it works quite well for it what it is. But it only does that - backup images. And one way only (it doesn't really sync, and while there does seem to be a desktop app, it's also just called backup, not sync). Plus even though the pics used up your drive space, they were not accessible through google drive, just google+. Though they JUST fixed that, like the last day or so it seems to have that functionality now, tho it still only has a few pics from my new phone, my ones from my old phone say "your older pictures will show here soon".
So to go the other way (pc to phone) i'll have to wait on that, and link my pc pics folder to that one folder (if it allows it).
So yea its nice for photos, but I see no way to do any of that for music. There was an article on the frontpage for some info about how to do phone to google drive for music, but it wasn't "syncing" - wasn't automatic, and again, only one way.
I know drive and dropbox have decent api's, so there is probably some more complex way to set them up to sync, just not sure how yet. Plus there are some specific music services out there, but I don't know even if any of those sync to mobile.
Eleventeen128 said:
Yea I've used drive lots too. It doesn't sync anything to android.
Google drive is pretty much exactly like dropbox in functionality.. It will only sync to desktop, the mobile app doesn't do it.
The only automatic function it has, is auto image backup to drive, and the drive app itself doesn't do that, the google+ app does. And it works quite well for it what it is. But it only does that - backup images. And one way only (it doesn't really sync, and while there does seem to be a desktop app, it's also just called backup, not sync). Plus even though the pics used up your drive space, they were not accessible through google drive, just google+. Though they JUST fixed that, like the last day or so it seems to have that functionality now, tho it still only has a few pics from my new phone, my ones from my old phone say "your older pictures will show here soon".
So to go the other way (pc to phone) i'll have to wait on that, and link my pc pics folder to that one folder (if it allows it).
So yea its nice for photos, but I see no way to do any of that for music. There was an article on the frontpage for some info about how to do phone to google drive for music, but it wasn't "syncing" - wasn't automatic, and again, only one way.
I know drive and dropbox have decent api's, so there is probably some more complex way to set them up to sync, just not sure how yet. Plus there are some specific music services out there, but I don't know even if any of those sync to mobile.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yah that's what I'm guessing to. All other cloud services are pretty much the same in terms of what they offer but I guess none sync to android very well. If you want to try another syncing app you may want to look at bittorent sync which may be what your looking for.
I think you can use an app for that. Try foldersync https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.tacit.android.foldersync.lite