# FX File Explorer: a "desktop-class" file/media manager w/ root, network & cloud



## tliebeck

Mod Type:: Application

Difficulty:: Very Easy

Mod Status:: Beta

Apply In:: Other (See Description)

Requires Root:: No

Source:: 
Hello all,

I'm the author of SystemPanel and have since written a file management application, "FX File Explorer". FX intends to be an uncluttered, everyday-usable file manager for Android. The primary development goal has been to create the same level of usability, intuitiveness, and efficiency as that offered by the file manager on your desktop computer.

Local file management features of FX are free, including the root features, indexed search, usage view, non-encrypted archive creation/extraction, the text editor, and all other viewers (e.g. script exec, binary viewer, image viewer). The network/cloud stuff and media-specific stuff (e.g. browsing music by album, editing playlists) is a paid add-on called "FX Plus".

The free version of FX is not a "Lite" version or some kind of watered-down demo. There is no advertising in FX. And there is no user-tracking, phoning home, or any other "doubleplusungood" stuff of any kind in FX.

*Home Screen*

The "Home Screen" appears when you first open FX. The idea of the home screen is that you create bookmarks to the folders you actually use, rather than milling through the garbage every app places in the root folder of your SD card.

One last note regarding the free-vs-plus stuff: The features shown in the "Media" and "Internet and Network" sections are part of the "FX Plus" add-on, while everything else is free. And another note: the home-screens below have every option turned on: you can use the "View" menu to customize what is shown.








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*Directory Browsing*

These screenshots show FX viewing a directory listing in the three different view modes: Icon, List, and Usage view.

Usage view is useful for managing/freeing space on your device, as it shows you how much space is used in each directory. Usage view is available only for local storage, and can be used as root.








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*Themes*

The previous screenshots were shown with the "Light" theme. The two screenshots below use the dark and light variants of the "Translucent" theme, where a dimmed version of your desktop background is displayed within FX (or a custom background of your choosing):








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*Split View Mode and Multiple Windows*

You can drag the "path bar" at the top of FX downward to enter split-view mode (or use the Window menu). Split-view works in both portrait and landscape orientations. You can also adjust the splitter position to make one view larger than the other, or swipe it away to go back to a single view.

You can open as many windows as you'd like, and view either one or two at a time.








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*Swipe-to-select*

You can drag your finger horizontally across an item to select or deselect it:










(Note: this horrible GIF animation is from an ancient pre-1.0 version of FX....the 2.0 version is a bit more pleasant)


*Pinch-to-zoom*

In any "explorer" view, you can use a "pinch-to-zoom" gesture to zoom in or out. In some views, zooming in will reveal more information about the displayed items. Below are two split view screenshots. In each, the top view is zoomed all the way in, the bottom all the way out. In the second screenshot browsing the /data folder as root, the permissions data disappears when you zoom all the way out.








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*Indexed Search*

FX uses an indexed search to more quickly locate files. The search index is updated on an as-needed basis and does NOT use a constantly-running background service. You can constrain searches by file name, folder, date, size, or file type.

http://android.nextapp.com/content/fx/external/forum2/Search.png
http://android.nextapp.com/content/fx/external/forum2/SearchResultsMenu.png

*Root / Developer Features*

FX supports root access. Root access requires an add-on, but the add-on is free.

Root access is kept entirely separate from normal file browsing, and can optionally be protected.

Developer features include:

Root access may be secured via PIN, Password, or Warning; secured access can be enabled for viewing or only for modifications
Remount filesystems as read/write or read-only
Disable System Apps
Root Usage View
Recursive Search
Modify permissions
Change Ownership/Group, with Android-based design (e.g. select an app-specific user by app name; see screenshot)
Symlink Creation (relative and absolute)
Shell Script Execution, with support for creating launcher shortcuts to execute scripts [NR]
Explore APK Contents [NR]
View Android Binary XML Files in Text Viewer [NR]
View any file in Binary Viewer [NR]
MD5/SHA1 Checksum and Composite Checksum Calculation/Comparison (checksum directory structures, optionally with UNIX permissions, [NR])
_Items marked with [NR] do not require root, but may offer more functionality when root is available._








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*Text Editor*

FX includes a full-featured text editor. It can edit local text files, edit files as root, and edit files on remote hosts (with FX Plus add-on). Features include:


Undo/Redo with History (able to undo/redo multiple times)
Cut/Copy/Paste
Pinch-to-zoom font scaling
Proportional and fixed fonts, word wrap can be enabled/disabled
Optional shortcut bar can be enabled to provide arrow keys and fast access to undo/redo
Jump to line number, beginning/ending of file
Find text within documents
File browsing for Open/Save As
Enable/disable autocorrect
Multiple color schemes
Save/load files in different character sets

http://android.nextapp.com/content/fx/external/forum2/EditorEdit.png
http://android.nextapp.com/content/fx/external/forum2/EditorView.png

*Menus, Tasks, and Miscellany*

The "Operations" screen lets you keep track of everything that FX is )doing. The "FX" task shown running in the notification area is only present when operations are ongoing. FX behaves like a proper Android app and doesn't need to constantly run in the background or be manually exited. Any network connections will be closed very quickly if they're not actively transferring data when the screen is turned off.
http://android.nextapp.com/content/fx/external/forum2/Operations.png

The mighty "View" menu.
http://android.nextapp.com/content/fx/external/forum2/ViewMenu.png

The binary viewer.
http://android.nextapp.com/content/fx/external/forum2/BinaryViewer.png

*Plus Add-On*

*All features demonstrated above are entirely free.* The Plus Add-On is the paid component of FX, and adds additional features:


Application management: browse user, system, or all installed apps
Browse installed apps by permission (e.g. find all apps which require GPS location or Internet access)
(Root Access Required) View /data usage by application, disable any application
AES-128/256 Zip Encryption/decryption; browse inside encrypted zip files/folders, view text files, images, audio and video files without ever writing decrypted version to media
Browse all Images, browse images by folder (e.g. Camera folders on different media/SD cards)
Browse camera Videos or all videos on device
Browse Music by Artist, Album, Playlist, or view all music
Browse ringtones, podcasts, notifications, and alarm sounds
Create playlists, add albums/tracks/artists/playlists to playlists, reorder playlists via drag-and-drop
Bluetooth FTP and Bluetooth Pairing within FX (pushing files via Bluetooth does NOT require FX Plus if your device supports it)

FX Plus adds support for the following network/cloud services:


SMB (Windows Networking), supports network browsing
FTP, including FTP-S and FTP-ES; browsing local network supported via mDNS
SSH, including public key, password, and interactive authentication; browsing local network supported via mDNS
WebDAV, including WebDAV over HTTPS; browsing local network supported via mDNS
Google Drive
Dropbox
Box
SugarSync
Microsoft SkyDrive (subject to file type limitations Microsoft places on all non-Microsoft clients)
OwnCloud (by creating a WebDAV connection)

http://android.nextapp.com/content/fx/external/forum2/CloudStorage.png
http://android.nextapp.com/content/fx/external/forum2/AppsByPermission.png
http://android.nextapp.com/content/fx/external/forum2/Photos.png
http://android.nextapp.com/content/fx/external/forum2/Playlist.png

How to get FX​
*Current Play Store Version*

To get the current version (2.x) from the Play Store, simply click here:
Download via Play Store

*Beta Testing*

FX can be beta tested by either downloading APKs directly (links will be posted in this thread) or via the FX beta channel on Google Play. At any given time, there may or may not be a release in the beta channel. (There won't be a release when a beta has just been pushed into production).

*To join the Google Play public beta test and receive automatic updates:*

*Step 1:* Join this Google+ community: https://plus.google.com/communities/101301040394875566704

*Step 2:* Visit this page to opt-in for beta testing: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/nextapp.fx
Beta APKs are also posted in this thread.

*Step 3:* Get FX from the Google Play Store: Download via Play Store

*If you'd prefer to download an APK directly:*

Go to the last page of this thread and grab a beta APK by clicking a download link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1253399&goto=newpost

APKs of FX are archived here:
http://android.nextapp.com/fx

Notable versions:

*FX 1.5.2, r286*: last release of the 1.x series. Does not use Holo-based UI. http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r286/FX_r286.apk
*FX 2.0.0.10, r2043*: first release of the 2.0 stable series. http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r2043/FX_r2043.apk

*Root add-on:*
The root add-on is available for direct download here: http://android.nextapp.com/fx/FXRoot.apk


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## MTDPaiste

Awesome! I've used SystemPanel since the original droid, still using it on my galaxy nexus. I'll definitely give this a try. Might be trading in root explorer for this if it has all the root features i'm looking for.


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## droidrage729

I've been using it for a bit now and everything including the root features seem to be working fine. Only minor issue I've come across is when viewing photos its hit or miss whether or not they come up sometimes I'm getting a black when I tap on a picture other then that so far so good.


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## Nucleotide

I've also been using FX for a while now and since root became available I've ditched all over File Explorers.

FX is brilliant. Nice UI, easy to use, fast. Love it!


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## iowabeakster

I've been trying FX for a couple of days (with root module). This is excellent work, I am really impressed. I never bought Root Explorer because I have had plenty of other options (like adb) to make root changes (and I am cheap). I also have used a free file explorer (Astro) just for the basics.

This beta version of FX makes this cheapskate willing to pay cash for a file explorer! There is so much functionality here, and so well done... really just wow. Nice job, sir. I haven't found any bugs as far as functionality. The UI and cosmetic touches and customizations are nice. I usually don't worry too much about appearances, but this just looks beautiful.

The only critcism I can come up with is that scrolling can be choppy sometimes (it can also be smooth sometimes too). It scrolls fast brilliantly, but can be jerky with slow movements. I thought I had it smoothed out by overclocking and tweaking, but all I really did was make it scroll faster (have achieved super-dizzy-fast). Like I said, sometimes it is perfectly smooth though.

Running on an htc Droid Incredible, android 2.3.7.


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## ardax

I love this program -- it's awesome.

The only thing I've noticed is that attemping to open an SFTP session crashes on my phone. The app connects, but as soon as it tries to pull a file listing Fx crashes back to the launcher.

I have a Droid Incredible, running Evervolv P12 right now. SFTP crashed with Abduction and (if memory serves) AOKP too -- all ICS ROMs. CM7 was never a problem though, and SMB works. I'm chalking it up to ICS still being under heavy development for the Inc.

I'll still be buying it as soon as the beta's over.


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## tliebeck

Thanks everyone, really appreciate the kind words!



ardax said:


> I love this program -- it's awesome.
> 
> The only thing I've noticed is that attemping to open an SFTP session crashes on my phone. The app connects, but as soon as it tries to pull a file listing Fx crashes back to the launcher.
> 
> I have a Droid Incredible, running Evervolv P12 right now. SFTP crashed with Abduction and (if memory serves) AOKP too -- all ICS ROMs. CM7 was never a problem though, and SMB works. I'm chalking it up to ICS still being under heavy development for the Inc.
> 
> I'll still be buying it as soon as the beta's over.


Is there any chance you can make it crash and send me a log? There are a couple of logcat apps on the market, e.g., catlog and alogcat. And you can always just use "adb logcat" to retrieve it as well. I'll be looking for the exception that occurs when FX crashes, it should look something like this (but *not* exactly like this), and should contain the phrase "nextapp.fx" somewhere within it:



Code:


java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{nextapp.fx/nextapp.fx.ui.DetailsActivity}: java.lang.NullPointerException<br />
at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2663)<br />
at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2679)<br />
at android.app.ActivityThread.access$2300(ActivityThread.java:125)<br />
at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:2033)<br />
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)<br />
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123)<br />
at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4627)<br />
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)<br />
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521)<br />
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:858)<br />
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:616)<br />
at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)<br />
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException<br />
at nextapp.fx.media.audio.AudioHome.getTrackByPath(AudioHome.java:624)<br />
at nextapp.fx.ui.DetailsActivity.renderAudioData(DetailsActivity.java:453)<br />
at nextapp.fx.ui.DetailsActivity.onCreate(DetailsActivity.java:336)<br />
at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1049)<br />
at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2627)<br />
... 11 more


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## ardax

Is this what you need?



Code:


W/dalvikvm(20234): threadid=13: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x40a7e1f8)<br />
E/AndroidRuntime(20234): FATAL EXCEPTION: Thread-999<br />
E/AndroidRuntime(20234): java.lang.NullPointerException<br />
E/AndroidRuntime(20234):  at nextapp.fx.dir.ssh.SshCollection.list(SshCollection.java:161)<br />
E/AndroidRuntime(20234):  at nextapp.fx.ui.dir.DirectoryContentView$4.run(DirectoryContentView.java:312)<br />
E/AndroidRuntime(20234):  at nextapp.maui.task.TaskThread.runTask(TaskThread.java:99)<br />
E/AndroidRuntime(20234):  at nextapp.maui.task.TaskThread.run(TaskThread.java:90)<br />
W/ActivityManager(  194):   Force finishing activity nextapp.fx/.ui.ExplorerActivity

Then there's handful of lines (several from memalloc, a few from ActivityManager and ImputManagerService) before this:



Code:


I/ActivityManager(  194): Process nextapp.fx (pid 20234) has died.

If there's any logcat options that would help, let me know and I can capture a new log.


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## tliebeck

Thanks, that's exactly what I need!

Is this version 0.127?



ardax said:


> Is this what you need?
> 
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> W/dalvikvm(20234): threadid=13: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x40a7e1f8)<br />
> E/AndroidRuntime(20234): FATAL EXCEPTION: Thread-999<br />
> E/AndroidRuntime(20234): java.lang.NullPointerException<br />
> E/AndroidRuntime(20234):  at nextapp.fx.dir.ssh.SshCollection.list(SshCollection.java:161)<br />
> E/AndroidRuntime(20234):  at nextapp.fx.ui.dir.DirectoryContentView$4.run(DirectoryContentView.java:312)<br />
> E/AndroidRuntime(20234):  at nextapp.maui.task.TaskThread.runTask(TaskThread.java:99)<br />
> E/AndroidRuntime(20234):  at nextapp.maui.task.TaskThread.run(TaskThread.java:90)<br />
> W/ActivityManager(  194):   Force finishing activity nextapp.fx/.ui.ExplorerActivity
> 
> Then there's handful of lines (several from memalloc, a few from ActivityManager and ImputManagerService) before this:
> 
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> I/ActivityManager(  194): Process nextapp.fx (pid 20234) has died.
> 
> If there's any logcat options that would help, let me know and I can capture a new log.


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## ardax

Yes, it's 0.127. My ICS installs have all been full wipes too, so there's no leftovers from old ROMs.


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## iowabeakster

I think I found my first bug. I am trying to connect via ssh to my desktop computer (wifi net). I haven't gotten it working, but that is probably just my own stupid fault...

But the bug I found is in the SSH FTP Server page>advanced options> alternate port [text box]... when I try to enter the alternate IP address the numeric keypad pops up (as expected). The problem is that the "." character does not work in this keypad... and therefore I cannot enter an address with this keypad.

android 2.3.7

One other suggestion is the ability to change the color of text. Depending on colors and brightness of the background used, custom colors might be a nice option to have.


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## Nucleotide

iowabeakster said:


> I think I found my first bug. I am trying to connect via ssh to my desktop computer (wifi net). I haven't gotten it working, but that is probably just my own stupid fault...
> 
> But the bug I found is in the SSH FTP Server page>advanced options> alternate port [text box]... when I try to enter the alternate IP address the numeric keypad pops up (as expected). The problem is that the "." character does not work in this keypad... and therefore I cannot enter an address with this keypad.
> 
> android 2.3.7
> 
> One other suggestion is the ability to change the color of text. Depending on colors and brightness of the background used, custom colors might be a nice option to have.


It's not a bug - it is your own fault.









It's an alternative port, *not* IP address. All you can do is type numbers into this field.


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## Nucleotide

FYI

New version has just been released.


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## jwesty

WOW.. This app is AWESOME!


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## iowabeakster

Nucleotide said:


> It's not a bug - it is your own fault.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It's an alternative port, *not* IP address. All you can do is type numbers into this field.


Yeah... figures... derp... lol

But I did figure out the stupid thing I was (not) doing to get the ssh tunnel working a few days ago. As it turns out, it really helps out to start the host ssh server. Now who would have thought that? (rolls eyes at myself) This is such a great feature to have in a mobile file explorer.

Again, well done man, this is an especially nice application.


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## tliebeck

ardax said:


> Yes, it's 0.127. My ICS installs have all been full wipes too, so there's no leftovers from old ROMs.


Sorry for the lazy reply on this, I have updated the next release (out later today) to hopefully shed some more light on this problem. This exception is very odd due to the fact that for it to occur the code should actually have failed a few lines before this point. Regrettably it will still likely fail in the same way in the next release, but at least I'll be able to see where the failure really is occurring in the updated version and fix it properly. The new version may also cure the problem entirely.

The technical reason for this is a supposedly immutable object provided by the third-party SSH library appears to have one of its values change from being non-null to null after invoking a particular method that isn't supposed to do that. And I can't actually replicate the problem here.


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## tliebeck

0.144 is now available on the market (just uploaded, may take 30 minutes or so before it becomes generally available.)

Changes in this release:
ImageViewer now supports opening previous/next images by swiping vertically.
Fixed bug with creating Tar archives (without compression).
Support for creating and decompressing single files using BZIP2 and GZIP (without TAR).
Improved progress feedback creating and decompressing archives.
Improved handling of over-recursive file operations (errors/warnings).
Improved memory management/out-of-memory scenario handling for text editor.
Media server (for streaming media from network locations) will now shutdown in 15 seconds if the screen is turned off. Some media players will continue retrieving data even when they are not playing anything, causing the media player to needlessly drain the battery (and largely blame FX in battery usage statistics).
Added "Close All" button to Windows menu. Tap-and-holding on this item will now FX's user interface to completely shut down (any background file transfer operations will continue).
Better handling of soft enter key in password dialogs for some phones/tablets.
Added relevant information to "Details" screen when viewing a filesystem root.
Confirm delete checkboxes can now be disabled in the settings.
Fixed issues with hanging operation dialogs for operations that executed near-instantaneously.
Character encoding support for text editor.
Additional bugfixes.


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## tliebeck

0.152 is now available.

This release adds Google Drive / Google Docs support. This feature is part of the cloud storage package, which will be in the paid version but is of course free during beta.

When downloading Google Docs files (i.e, Documents, Spreadsheets and Presentations created by Google Docs or imported to it) you can choose the file format of the download. Available formats include Microsoft Office, OpenDocument (OpenOffice/LibreOffice), PDF, plain text, HTML, and more.

For example:









In 0.152, files will by default be downloaded in Microsoft Office formats. This will be configurable in a future release. Files will automatically be renamed with the correct extensions at time of download.

FX may eventually gain support for viewing certain types of Google Docs documents, but unfortunately this feature is broken on mobile platforms in Google Docs at present in some cases (e.g. text document viewing). I need to hit up stackoverflow and find out if this can be corrected.

In addition to Google Drive support, this release improves the image viewer a bit, specifically with regard to dragging, zooming, and switching between images. The updated version should be less prone to switching images on accident, and a few bugs have been corrected with regard to multiple touch zooming.

And finally we now have support for refreshing local directory information automatically when files are updated as a result of background operations or by other applications.

This release was uploaded moments ago, so it may take 20-30 minutes before the market allows it to be downloaded.


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## SSMayNV

This app rocks! Put me on the list to purchase as soon as your release it.


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## ardax

I'm still getting the crash on getting a file listing over SFTP on my Inc running ICS. It happened on Zimeron's AOKP M5 w/ HWA build, and it's still happening with drk.hd's CM9 a6 build with 0.152 (after a full wipe, including boot & system). Clean install -- haven't put anything else on the phone.

Logcat:


Code:


21:14:31.411 Warning dalvikvm 4505  threadid=14: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x40a3f1f8)<br />
21:14:31.411 Error AndroidRuntime 4505  FATAL EXCEPTION: Thread-254<br />
21:14:31.411 Error AndroidRuntime 4505  java.lang.NullPointerException<br />
21:14:31.411 Error AndroidRuntime 4505   at nextapp.fx.dir.ssh.SshCollection.list(SshCollection.java:161)<br />
21:14:31.411 Error AndroidRuntime 4505   at nextapp.fx.ui.dir.DirectoryContentView$5.run(DirectoryContentView.java:348)<br />
21:14:31.411 Error AndroidRuntime 4505   at nextapp.maui.task.TaskThread.runTask(TaskThread.java:94)<br />
21:14:31.411 Error AndroidRuntime 4505   at nextapp.maui.task.TaskThread.run(TaskThread.java:85)<br />
21:14:31.411 Warning ActivityManager 174    Force finishing activity nextapp.fx/.ui.ExplorerActivity


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## tliebeck

ardax said:


> I'm still getting the crash on getting a file listing over SFTP on my Inc running ICS. It happened on Zimeron's AOKP M5 w/ HWA build, and it's still happening with drk.hd's CM9 a6 build with 0.152 (after a full wipe, including boot & system). Clean install -- haven't put anything else on the phone.
> 
> Logcat:
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> 21:14:31.411 Warning dalvikvm 4505  threadid=14: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x40a3f1f8)<br />
> 21:14:31.411 Error AndroidRuntime 4505  FATAL EXCEPTION: Thread-254<br />
> 21:14:31.411 Error AndroidRuntime 4505  java.lang.NullPointerException<br />
> 21:14:31.411 Error AndroidRuntime 4505   at nextapp.fx.dir.ssh.SshCollection.list(SshCollection.java:161)<br />
> 21:14:31.411 Error AndroidRuntime 4505   at nextapp.fx.ui.dir.DirectoryContentView$5.run(DirectoryContentView.java:348)<br />
> 21:14:31.411 Error AndroidRuntime 4505   at nextapp.maui.task.TaskThread.runTask(TaskThread.java:94)<br />
> 21:14:31.411 Error AndroidRuntime 4505   at nextapp.maui.task.TaskThread.run(TaskThread.java:85)<br />
> 21:14:31.411 Warning ActivityManager 174	Force finishing activity nextapp.fx/.ui.ExplorerActivity


Thanks again, finally figured this out and will be corrected in the next release. Really appreciate the reports!


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## tliebeck

0.154 is now available for download on the Google Play Store.

This release is a maintenance update, its primary purpose being to solve some reported bugs and implement some user-provided suggestions.

SSH: Fixed crash with some SSH servers (Thanks ardax!)
Root: Permission editor can now be opened from details view (root and SSH).
Root: Option to hide non-root System catalog when root is enabled. Long-pressing on root System catalog now has option to open it without root when this option is enabled.
Google Drive: MD5 hashes are now displayed in details.
Music/Audio: Individual album view now has option to sort by name or track number.
Music/Audio: Significantly improved performance (e.g. scrolling) when album art is enabled.


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## ardax

tliebeck said:


> Thanks again, finally figured this out and will be corrected in the next release. Really appreciate the reports!


Confirmed fixed on 0.154 for me. Thank you for tracking it down!


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## tliebeck

Yet another performance and bugfix release...0.158 is out whenever the Google Play Store feels like propagating it to all the servers.


User interface responsiveness improved when scrolling through directories containing large numbers of images.
Slightly faster loading of local file directories containing hundreds of items.
Fixed bug where cut/copy operations with very large selections (i.e., several hundred selected items) would not start.
Redundant soft menu key disabled for ICS and Honeycomb devices.
Fixed bug where large images were not displayed in Image Viewer on ICS and Honeycomb devices.


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## derschniffles

I seriously heart you man....WTF, its not even my birthday for another month. I friggin love this app. I am willing to give you more than your asking price for this. It has literally replaced about 4 apps and condensed them into one, easy to use app. LOVE IT. All my cloud storage in one spot, all my movies and music from my home computer all in one spot that streams straight to my tablet which replaces apps like emit or vlc streamer, all my hard drives over the network which makes splashtop not as functional (still use it for stuff but no longer data that needs to be moved because i forgot something lol).....oh man, its great! Love the interface too.

Will SMB sharing work remotely or do I need to set it up for FTP to connect when im not on my home network?


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## tliebeck

derschniffles said:


> I seriously heart you man....WTF, its not even my birthday for another month. I friggin love this app. I am willing to give you more than your asking price for this. It has literally replaced about 4 apps and condensed them into one, easy to use app. LOVE IT. All my cloud storage in one spot, all my movies and music from my home computer all in one spot that streams straight to my tablet which replaces apps like emit or vlc streamer, all my hard drives over the network which makes splashtop not as functional (still use it for stuff but no longer data that needs to be moved because i forgot something lol).....oh man, its great! Love the interface too.
> 
> Will SMB sharing work remotely or do I need to set it up for FTP to connect when im not on my home network?


Thanks!!!

SMB sharing should work over the internet, but I generally wouldn't recommend it from a server-security perspective to anyone who doesn't set up SMB networks for a living and is thus far more qualified than I to talk about it. My suggestion would be an FTP server setup to require explicit SSL encryption (at least for remote connections). I'd suggest explicit over implicit based on implicit being considered deprecated, i.e.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTPS The other option of course is SSH FTP, but that choice is best used by folks who already have one setup by default on their UNIX-based OSes.


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## d3athb4dishonor

I'm digging this file explorer, if only it had a back up apps feature like file expert nothing could touch this app. It's still great though.

Sent from my myTouch_4G_Slide using Tapatalk 2


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## derschniffles

kinda feel retarded here but I cant seem to get smb to work when im not on my own network. getting pretty frustrated with it haha. any ideas?


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## derschniffles

So ive been trying for a couple of hours now and I can not for the life of me connect via SMB unless im on my home network. It keeps saying password not accepted. My hds are shared, ive turned my firewall off on my router and computer just to see if it made a difference and it didnt, ive created a new user which gave the same results....ive googled the crap outta this and nothing seems to work. I really dont wanna set up a ftp server just to share my hard drives on my computer....any help would be appreciated.


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## ardax

It's entirely possible that your ISP is blocking SMB/CIFS in from the internet. There's very, very, few good reasons to share SMB/CIFS on the internet and it's too easy to get wrong. Couple that with some past exploits and you've got a great use case for ISP-level filtering (and quite a few do).

Personally, I'd recommend setting up an SFTP service on your system. It's not difficult and very secure. Bitvise WinSSHD is free for personal non-commercial use and works very well in my experience. It's easy to set up, works with your Windows accounts by default, resource-friendly, and an overall very well put together package.

Others have good things to say about FreeSSHd, but I've never used it myself.

Either of these options is a million times better than trying to get SMB working over the internet.


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## derschniffles

*edit* nvm, i got it, thanks for the tip on that program man. got it workin fantastic!


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## tliebeck

0.162 is now available on the market.

This release again focuses on aesthetic improvements, UI responsiveness, and incorporates a fair number of fixes as well.

Those who like black text on white backgrounds will be happy that these configuration settings now display as expected, e.g.:










(Black bar on right side is a DDMS screenshot artifact).

I'd ask again that folks please submit bug reports at this stage. If you ever see FX *CRASH*, it's especially important....it should of course never do that. Even occasional crashing is not okay, regardless of what you've come to expect from other software...it should NEVER CRASH. Please e-mail bugs (or just post here) if it does.

Additionally I'm very interested in any reports of not being able to connect to network or cloud servers.

Thanks again for testing/reporting bugs/suggesting ideas, really appreciate it all!


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## derschniffles

so i have a few major gripes. first, browsing photos on dropbox is painfully slow. like 30 seconds each time i scroll for each to show. this was replicated on my evo running nitrus rom, my tablet running cm9 and my friends stock droid4. second, whenever i play music through my ssh ftp, i cant do anything else or else the music just closes. meaning i cant do anything else while music is playing. i cant open a new window, i cant push the back button, i cant leave the app at all or even do anything else in the app. i even tried it with a mp3 on the sd card and same thing. it does the same thing in file manager hd so i dont know if its just a restriction or something.

other than that, not a single crash or performance issue and i still heart you man lol. thanks for your time.


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## tliebeck

Hello all!

Release 0.167 is now available. The improvements include:


Multithreaded I/O.
Network I/O Performance Improvements.
RAR Archive Extraction (UnRAR)
Archive extractor now offers "Extract to Folder" option.
Fixed bug w/ streaming videos over SSH connections.
More UI improvements/fixes for light colored background in file views.
New application icons.
General bugfixes and performance improvements.

As usual, it has just been uploaded and thus may take the Android market an 30 minutes to an hour to make it available.


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## tliebeck

derschniffles said:


> so i have a few major gripes. first, browsing photos on dropbox is painfully slow. like 30 seconds each time i scroll for each to show. this was replicated on my evo running nitrus rom, my tablet running cm9 and my friends stock droid4. second, whenever i play music through my ssh ftp, i cant do anything else or else the music just closes. meaning i cant do anything else while music is playing. i cant open a new window, i cant push the back button, i cant leave the app at all or even do anything else in the app. i even tried it with a mp3 on the sd card and same thing. it does the same thing in file manager hd so i dont know if its just a restriction or something.
> 
> other than that, not a single crash or performance issue and i still heart you man lol. thanks for your time.


Thanks for the reports!

First, there is a bug in streaming via SSH that was just fixed in 0.167. It was certainly broken in 0.163 and may have been broken in a version or two before that as well. The bug prevented seeking within a file (audio or video) specifically over SSH (it worked on all other protocols). This is not the problem you're experiencing though.

When FX streams audio/video from the network (or a cloud service) all it's doing is providing the data to a third party application. The default audio playback app may just bring up a dialog (e.g. if it's Google's stock Play Music app). You'll need to find an app that can be opened with an HTTP stream and keep playing in the background. I'm not sure what's out there that will do this though,

FX won't support playing playlists or queueing whole albums though, so it's not going to work particularly well if you want to stream music for hours.

With regard to browsing photos on cloud services/network locations...currently we're downloading the entire photograph to a temporary folder and resizing it...if they're 2MB each, it's going to be painful on a less-than-great connection. I believe most of the cloud services provide thumbnails (uncertain on sizes) which could be used to make this experience much more pleasant. I need to look into what each service's API supports for thumbnailing, and then modify the image viewer to support initially displaying a small thumbnail while the real photo is being loaded in the background. I'll add this to the to-do list, but it likely can't be put in by 1.0.

Thanks again!


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## derschniffles

Thanks for your response. Just to let you know, I dont get thumbnail previews. I thought of that as well but no matter what, all I get is every single pic has a thumbnail of a boat in water with the sun. The option is checked and it dosent seem to matter which view is used. When I view photos on my sd card I get a preview but never on cloud storage or network. When I use the dropbox app, it takes less than 3 seconds going between photos. Normally this wouldnt be something that I complained about but I use it for work and need to pull pictures up quite a bit. Even on my home wifi, it takes about 4-6 seconds to pull up a picture, which isnt too bad, but when I dont have thumbnails and im going through 20 or so folders, each with 20 or so pictures. When im at work on 3g with crappy signal it takes about 20 seconds for each picture. dropbox still only takes a few seconds. you get the idea.

new update is pretty awesome but it crashed right after it updated lol. i dont think i let it finish updating before i went back into the app haha. oops









thanks for your quickness and response on this app, your a top notch dev/guy


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## tliebeck

0.170 is out now. This release pretty much fixes one problem (FX couldn't upload larger files via FTP-ES/S). This single issue literally took almost an entire week to debug, the underlying problem turned out to be between Android's SSL API and the Apache Commons Net library. There are also a few minor tweaks and cleanups, but nothing terribly exciting.


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## tliebeck

0.173 is now available.

This release adds support for directly exploring Zip and RAR archives. You can now view text and image files and play audio and video media without extracting it.


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## tliebeck

0.175 is out.

This one makes a fairly major improvement to the swipe-to-select gesture used for selecting files. Android reduced the threshold for drag-scrolling with ICS, and as a result FX's swipe-to-select did not work as desired. Previously you had to swipe "very" horizontally in order to avoid cancelling the selection due to vertical scrolling. With 0.175 you can now drag at an angle up to +/- 25 degrees.


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## tliebeck

0.181 is now available. This release adds support for setting font/item sizes.

Here's a composite screenshot showing the various sizes (Click for full-sized 6-megapixel 2.8MB version).


This was taken on a Droid4 with a "midsize" 960x540 display. A bit bigger than the 2010/2011 standard 800x480 WVGA size, but smaller than the new 720p (1280x720) displays.

Note that on 800x480 displays, the small size won't show two columns in most views. On 960x540 and 1280x720 displays, it will. Tablets are of course a whole different story, and most of the time the small size is a bit too ridiculous to use on them.

Size adjustments are done via the Settings, under the "Appearance" section.

The "Search" text is the wrong size in the home screen screenshots above, but this is not present in the released version.


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## tliebeck

0.183 is now available on the market.

You can now use "Open With" on remote files and within Zip archives to open files with arbitrary applications. E.g., if you want to open a Word document on an FTP server, just tap it, and select an appropriate app in the Open With dialog.

The release also contains some minor aesthetic tweaks, most notable on the home and network/cloud screens.

Would greatly appreciate feedback on both of these.

One minor note: to stream media from remote servers or archive files, just tap the file (instead of long-pressing to get the "Open With" option). Currently we're not providing options for streaming in that dialog, but they will be added.


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## tliebeck

186 is out!

Changes include:


"Open with" dialog now provides streaming options when applicable.
Enabled streaming media playback from Google Drive.
Aesthetic updates, including new dialog styling.
Fixed bug where closing connections from homes screen didn't reflect changes until "Refresh" was pressed.
Enabled hardware acceleration by default (generally will only affect Honeycomb devices, ICS/JB already did it).
Updates to the for-geeks-only system status screen.

And yes, it works with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.


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## tliebeck

0.190 is now available, adding support for Microsoft SkyDrive and a few minor bugfixes.


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## tliebeck

Hello all,

I've released R202, also known as 1.0 Release Candidate 1. This is a bugfix release, with the following improvements:

Fixed bug with potentiallly changing permissions when saving files as root in text editor.
Fixed bug where APK icons could be mismatched between files.
Fixed bug where remote images could be loaded twice over the network in the image viewer.
Added help for root module (does not require updating root module).
The in-app links to download the root module (both in the root help and the System Catalog warning popup) now direct users to the Android Market rather than to the test root module. The test root module is still available and will still work until the 1.0.0 release. You can still get it here: http://android.nexta...site/fx/getroot , and it's also quite visible on the android.nextapp.com home page as well as in the Google Play Store description for the paid root module.

Please, please, please report bugs and hassle me if you've reported a bug and it's still unfixed.

Thanks again for all the testing, reports, and suggestions!
--Tod


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## o0BlacknesS0o

This is pretty nice so far...fairly smooth and good ui

Droid Charge powered by TSM Tweaked 3.0 w/ JellyBean 5.0


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## tliebeck

Release candidate 2 is out...new features/improvements include:

Added "customize home" panel to configure what items are on homescreen. Accessible via settings of from home "View" menu.
Added "add-ons" screen to show available/installed add-ons (can be disabled in any version via "customize home").
Fixed text editor rendering bug.
Added specific notifications for failed background operations.
Archives may now be automatically downloaded/opened from remote servers.
Release of 1.0 is imminent. Thanks again for reporting bugs, quirks, issues, and annoyances!


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## tliebeck

Hello all,

FX 1.0.0 is now available!

This release is a fairly trivial update to 1.0.rc2, just a few minor bugfixes. It's available on the Google Play Store in the usual place: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nextapp.fx

The final beta expiration date is extended one more week, to September 27. Note that if you do a clean install of FX (i.e., if you don't have a previous beta installed), the beta-trial-mode won't turn on. If you need to work around this, download an old version first, e.g.: http://android.nextapp.com/fx/r188/FX.apk and install it. Then open the old version and agree to the license agreement (this will store a setting indicating that you have used the beta). Then upgrade to the new version.

The paid "FX Plus" add-on is available here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nextapp.fx.rk (~$3) and the root add-on is here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nextapp.fx.rr (~$2).

Thanks again to everyone for all the help in testing FX. Though this may be 1.0, the intent is very much to continue development...there are quite a few features that I'd like to see go in, e.g. WebDAV, NFC, Wifi Direct, more cloud services, network search, select-by-mask...actually too much to list. Please feel free to continue with the suggestions, they're greatly appreciated.

Best
--Tod

P.S.
If anyone who previously posted in this thread would find it difficult for any reason to purchase it (e.g you don't have a Play Store account, or you're in college and it would interfere with your refreshment budget), please drop me a PM with your email address.


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## tliebeck

1.0.2 is now available. This is a bugfix release, adding the following improvements relative to 1.0.0:


Added measures to help prevent FX background transfers from being stopped by aggressive task killers.
Fixed issues with uploading multiple files to some FTP servers.
Added simple root access diangostics to System Status screen.
Added capability to bookmark network and cloud destinations directly from the network/cloud home screens.
Fixed bug when setting background that has already been perfectly resized to device screen.
Fixed bug where keyring password could timeout during file transfers.
Fixed bug related to pinch-zoom responsiveness in image viewer.


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## tliebeck

FX 1.1.0 is now available.

Key changes include:

*Root module is now a free add-on.* If you previously purchased this module, please email [email protected] with your name and Google Order Number if you would like a refund. DO NOT send any credit card information. See below for details.
Added support for Android 4.2 (fixed cosmetic bookmark and storage location issues).
Added external subtitle support for remote streamed videos (subtitle file must be named identically to video)
Text Editor: Added undo/redo pinch-to-zoom, search, volume-key cursor control, and shortcut keys for devices with physical-keyboards.
Text Viewer: Added pinch-to-zoom. Added menu shortcut to open files with editor from viewer.
Binary Viewer: Performance improvements, added pinch-to-zoom.
General performance improvements and bugfixes.
Added support for exploring and extracting APK and JAR files (available via "Open With").
The root module is now a free app. If you purchased it and would like a refund, please email [email protected] with your name and order number, but WITHOUT any credit/bank card information. Again, DO NOT send any credit/bank card info, being as all orders are through Google Play it is not the least bit helpful in issuing refunds.

The Plus module will of course continue as a paid app.

The root module will continue to be a separate add-on. I think I prefer it this way, so as lessen any possibility of misuse by novices, and to avoid FX being classified as a tool solely for technical users.

Additionally, I'm considering allowing distribution of FX within custom ROMs. (Only the main app and free root app would be allowed, NOT the Plus add-on). The requirements here would be that:

You use a stock FX APK. It must not be decompiled/modified or re-signed.
It must be possible to upgrade to later versions of FX via the Google Play Store.
It must be possible to install the FX Plus add-on and have it work.
There must be some way for users to remove it from their installation (i.e., I don't want to ever be considered bloatware).
I'm not a ROM developer, but I believe these requirements could be met. If anyone who is more experienced here could provide any insight, I'd greatly appreciate it. Specifically I'm curious as to whether FX could be preinstalled into the /data directory, or whether it would have to reside in /system.

Additionally I'd like to offer a means of allowing ROM developers to customize the default settings of FX...possibly just including a preferences.xml would be adequate. For instance, I can see devs wanting to remove the "Add-Ons" section from the FX home screen by default, which would be perfectly fine with me.

As to why this is being done: I simply want more people to be exposed to be FX, and I think free root access may be a great way to do it.


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## icedventimocha

Love the UI of this app, I really dig the homescreen, its kind of a mix between miui file explorer and Windows explorer. Wallpaper doesn't work as the backround, but I'm also still on GB so the theme might just not redirect properly on GB. But 2 things is love to see in this app. 1. The ability to open apks as zips like you can thru 7zip for theming purposes. 2. Would love to see the ability to sign zip/apk/jar files right within the app. Other than that this is a solid file manager. Thanks for the development


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## tliebeck

icedventimocha said:


> Love the UI of this app, I really dig the homescreen, its kind of a mix between miui file explorer and Windows explorer. Wallpaper doesn't work as the backround, but I'm also still on GB so the theme might just not redirect properly on GB. But 2 things is love to see in this app. 1. The ability to open apks as zips like you can thru 7zip for theming purposes. 2. Would love to see the ability to sign zip/apk/jar files right within the app. Other than that this is a solid file manager. Thanks for the development


Sorry for the delay in reply, I managed to get unsubscribed from this thread. You can explore APKs as zip files in the latest versions. Just long press and tap "Open With", then "Explore with FX".

I've thought about doing a "dev pack add-on" at some point, but need to do more research as to what would be required. Definitely would need to add the ability to translate Google's binary XML as well.


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## tliebeck

FX 1.2 is now available on the Play Store: https://play.google....s?id=nextapp.fx

The major new feature in this release is "Usage View", which is designed to help you determine what files/folders on your device are taking up the most space. It shows information about the content and size of each folder in a file listing. It additionally displays information about what type of files are in a given folder structure.

Usage View is accessible from any local file window (it can't work over a network). To access it, tap the View menu and select "Usage View". Usage View is disabled when you exit a file view. It's not a "permanent" mode yet like "Icon View" or "List View".

A screenshot:









Usage View adds a graphic indicator next to each folder/file showing its relative consumption of space. The indicator is on a logarithmic scale. It's intended to show relative size. For example, the Android folder in the screenshot above is consuming 15% of the space, but the indicator is nearly 3/4 filled. Something using 15% of your storage space is quite large.

Above the files is a horizontally scrolling toolbar (but on a tablet such as this Nexus 7, it doesn't need to scroll). The first pie chart shows how much space the current directory is using relative to other folders and free space on its storage medium. The second pie chart shows the percentage of space occupied by each class of file. "Documents" include plain text files and content types of common Office/OpenOffice documents.

More screenshots:
















Usage View also works as the root user. The display when using root access is a bit different. The breakdown by file type is removed. Mounted filesystems are shown with Pie charts indicating their used/available space:

















FX 1.2 also has improvements to its thumbnailing system. Thumbnails are now larger and cropped to a square form factor. Thumbnails are now shown on all cloud storage services with FX Plus (Google Drive, SugarSync, Box, Dropbox, and SkyDrive).


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## tliebeck

FX 2.0 Released


FX 2.0 is now available on the Play Store. I've updated the first post of this thread to include all-new screenshots showing off the 2.0 features.

The major changes include:

*New Holo-based UI*. Tons of other aesthetic updates throughout the app.
*New light, dark, and translucent themes*. FX 1.5 added some theming capability, but 2.0 takes it significantly farther. The entire UI can now be changed between light and dark themes. Virtually every aesthetic element has been updated.
*Dual pane view*. Panes are resizable, and work in portrait and landscape mode. You can use the "Split View" option in the Window menu to start dual pane mode, or just swipe downward on the path bar. You can also swipe the lower path bar away to exit dual pane mode.
*Pinch-to-zoom*, everywhere. In any "Explorer" view, you can pinch-to-zoom to zoom in or out. Zooming will increase/decrease the amount of information displayed in some views, e.g., in root views, the permission data and last modified time will be removed as you zoom out.

And a few more screenshots for good measure:










From a tablet (this is ONE screenshot )









Browsing installed apps *by permission*:


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## quickdraw86

Thanks for FX! I'm a premium user, and believe this app to be one of the overall best in the store. The only thing that could make FX any better would be the addition of MEGA or copy as possible cloud locations, otherwise, a perfect explorer.


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## tliebeck

quickdraw86 said:


> Thanks for FX! I'm a premium user, and believe this app to be one of the overall best in the store. The only thing that could make FX any better would be the addition of MEGA or copy as possible cloud locations, otherwise, a perfect explorer.


Thanks, and Mega.co.nz is currently the most requested cloud service add, followed by Copy. Mega has an API out, Copy is in closed beta at the moment. Regrettably supporting all the cloud services is a bit of a nightmare. Each uses there own API, and each has fundamental differences from the next. And at three of the currently supported cloud services have radically updated their APIs in the past year. It's a mess .


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## quickdraw86

tliebeck said:


> Thanks, and Mega.co.nz is currently the most requested cloud service add, followed by Copy. Mega has an API out, Copy is in closed beta at the moment. Regrettably supporting all the cloud services is a bit of a nightmare. Each uses there own API, and each has fundamental differences from the next. And at three of the currently supported cloud services have radically updated their APIs in the past year. It's a mess .


Yeah, that does sound like a lot of trouble, great explanation. You already have five popular cloud services available, which is more than other apps can claim by far. The extent of cloud integration in most other apps is limited to drive or dropbox.


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