HN Explorer

17 comments

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_pgp_
The project was born by the need to centralize in one application several file-explorer related capabilities, since I used to use: - jrummy's Root Browser for generic file management: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jrummyapps... - RAR for Android for compressed archive support: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rarlab.rar - AndFTP for SFTP transfers: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lysesoft.andft... - Superbeam for device-to-device transfers (till four years ago, the app was broken since Android 5) Moreover, I don't like ads very much, and each of these applications (at least in their free flavours) are ad-supported, so I started building my own application with the needed features.

The main dependencies the app uses are: - The Botan TLS library, for checksum support, private key generation for SFTP identities, and for establishing a TLS channel for device-to-device file exchange: https://botan.randombit.net/ - p7zip 16.0.2 (with a few modifications) for archive management: http://p7zip.sourceforge.net/ - SSHJ, for SFTP client support: https://github.com/hierynomus/sshj - Apache MINA for exposing a FTP server, if it's needed to share files with other platforms not running the app: https://mina.apache.org/ftpserver-project/index.html - Apache Commons lang for escaping urls in the builtin HTTP server implementation (same purpose of the FTP server): https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-lang/ - (work in progress) SMBJ, for SMB client support for accessing remote shared folders on Windows: https://github.com/hierynomus/smbj

The main features are: - File explorer for local filesystems, with dual backend, namely the Java API-based one, and a native one relying on an external C++ executable (Roothelper) that can be run as root if root permissions are available; - Supported file ops: copy, move (cut/copy + paste) for local, copy supports interactive file conflict resolution on local filesystems; copy only for remote file transfer; soft and hard linking where supported, mkdir, create file (both empty and with random content and custom size) - List view and grid view visualization, two-tab main browser view (ViewPager, slide from one tab to the other), with multi-step sort feature (e.g. sort first by date descending, then by name ascending, etc...) - Multi-selection feature, also with a continuous variant (similar to what you would do on PC by holding down left mouse button, opening a selection rectangle, and moving till needed items are selected); select all/none/unselect all/none/filter selection options as well - Compressed archive listing and extraction (7Z,ZIP,TAR,GZ,BZ2,XZ,CAB,RAR), and creation (7Z,TAR,ZIP), with some archiving options (password, encrypt filenames, compression level) - Hashing support, even for multiple files and multiple hashes at once, for the following checksums: MD5, SHA1, SHA2 variants (SHA256,SHA512...), SHA3 variants, Bl...

fock
Do you have some pictures of the UI (which is arguably the worst thing about most OS file managers for android)? From the spec-sheet this looks great!
_pgp_
You can find the UI in the GIFs that illustrate some uses cases in the Demos repo: https://github.com/pgp/XFilesDemos

I want to emphasize that I'm not an Android UI expert, so the solutions implemented for some UI interactions may seem a little tricky.

Tistron
Can't view those pictures with my phone, github says they're too big.
0xdeadb00f
Spoof desktop and it works fine. There's an option in the context menu in Firefox. Not sure about Chrome or Safari though.
Tistron
Thanks, didn't occur to me that they meant view size and not file size.
out_of_protocol
File size probably, limit for mobile view is different from desktop's
fock
Thanks a lot. But sadly this looks a lot like all the other filemanagers which are opensource. Lots of click here, click there that termux is probably just as useful. Probably some one with an interest in UI comes up here (don't know much about Android-UI...)

Disclaimer: personally (no degoogled-Android) I use a file manager by Asus, which does SMB and has a overall nice UX

sascha_sl
calling it XFiles when it doesn't run on X, ahhh, that really irks me for some reason...
_pgp_
actually, the native library does use X11 for showing the hashview window on Unix systems :D
Fnoord
X is on its way out anyway, given Wayland.
stewbrew
In the app store there already are several called xfiles - remember the TV series with the same name? There is also the x-plore file explorer. Maybe they reconsider the project's name.
tenryuu
The amount of hassle there is to actually get a view of this without installing it is quite a bullshit task.

From the readme, you have to navigate to an entirely different repo, which contains only contains a handful of preview files.

Even then, they are all gifs, so if you wanted static content you're out of luck, as gifs are pretty much the incorrect format for lengthy content such as this. Files average 6-10MB each, so if you're actually on mobile, github won't preview them (how nice, they think of my data plan).

Consider ShareX [https://github.com/ShareX/ShareX], who quite some time ago did strip out their entire readme for putting more information on their own website, but they still have a gif showing a majority functions from their application. It's less than 200kb, because someone decided to optimise their content to an acceptable extent

_pgp_
Thank you for your suggestion, I'll add some static previews in the main repo README.
[dead] malluvideos
desktop and it works fine. There's an option in the context menu in Firefox.

my profile:- https://goo.gl/UaAbuA or https://goo.gl/RDRxqt my blog:- https://goo.gl/2dedEu or https://goo.gl/RDRxqt

thanks. but they still have a gif showing a majority functions from their application. It's less than 200kb, because someone decided to optimise their content to an acceptable extent https://goo.gl/R8Kmuu, https://goo.gl/h8n3sW, https://goo.gl/ZDjHuD, https://goo.gl/LnWe4y, https://goo.gl/NrNgRN, https://goo.gl/pHuwzL, https://goo.gl/WgZVVq, https://goo.gl/i3rx4U, https://goo.gl/jPedd5, https://goo.gl/sKde7G,