Related
I want to be able to set up a series of menu's, at the end of selections it then links to an image, like a jpg or pdf perhaps.
Let me put it in a context. Maybe as a playbook viewer (American Football). I start with 'Offence' and 'Defence' as my options, which ever I choose takes me to a list of formations, then to 'Pass' or 'Run' then a list of plays. When I select a play if shows an image of the play.
Another might be job descriptions. I select the level 'manager', 'assistant' etc, then the section and then it shows a job description as an image or I guess text.
I think there are probably quite a few uses for this. I know I could set this up with basically web pages stored locally on my phone, but it would be kinda cool to have some smooth swooshing animations and such.
I'm wondering if it should initially be a desktop application so you can link up the menu's and images and it then compiles an apk for you?
Is this possible?
More generically...
What you're describing is a hierarchical database.
You need a tree manager app - where all your 'menu items' and subordinates are simply nodes and leaves of the tree.
A generic app would allow nodes/leaves to be 'textual', iconified, or pictures.
I haven't done any searches... but given that iconified list views, and cursored SQL queries are part of the standard package.... I'd think this would be relatively straightforward to both develop (app to add nodes/subnodes, builf the tree, enter/import the content) ship (app to serialize the database config+data, as a psuedo-app) and deploy (load a serialized db, execute it)
I'm a noob at android & at Java - but I might take a crack at something if I ever find time (my job & family don't leave a lot of time for anything else)
After trying out most of the note-taking applications and not finding something that suits my needs, I'm submitting my wishlist here to get the expert opinions available in this forum (this forum is a major reason I bought another HTC phone!)
Ok, I'm not after many bells and whistles, but the below are what I'd like my Note Taking app to be able to do:
Offline usage must (so current Evernote offering doesn't serve). Not everyone is online with fast enough internet access, all the time.
Save notes (not just backup) to a SDCard folder - so that I can sync that folder myself to my desktop PC if the app doesn't have that, using wifi+ftp.
Save notes in a Desktop editable format (but not in a browser window - I am still not very much a webapp person, and I need offline access to my notes). Rather a much desired setup would be a Desktop counterpart of the same app with sync (like is the case with many WM apps).
Notes on this - Can we only have Text-only notes? I don't think rich text editing is too much to ask, but does Android support that? I've not seen any note taking app do that (but then how do the word file editors work?).
A well-implemented search function that covers all notes... incremental search too much to ask?
Either tree-like or long scroll like (a-la evernote) structure to organise notes, instead of a simple list.
Tags.
That's what I can think of at the moment. Am I asking for the moon here, or is this available somewhere I didn't look?
Any help would me most appreciated.
Thank you
I agree with you on these. Everynote can be used offline, though, it just won't sync, of course.
Something I've been looking for, and hopefully someone knows of an option, is an app that does speech to text, but also records the voice memo, so you can correct any mistakes the voice recognition made, and things like that. Sort of a dictation and speech to text mash up?
Version Alpha 0.6.0 is now available
I'm back! Not dead yet, I promise. This is actually a relatively small update in terms of user-facing features, with only one really big new thing - support for file uploading - but that's a lot bigger than it might sound. It's the first write support I've implemented in the server, and it also required some fairly massive updates to the HttpServer component (support for binary requests, for POST parameters, for MIME multipart parsing). These will be built upon in forthcoming versions to add support for things like registry editing, in-browser file viewing (possibly editing), and so on. There are also a large number of small fixes and improvements that I've made over the last two-weeks-shy-of-a-year, which should make the server faster, more robust, better able to support concurrent connections, and lighter on device resources. Finally, while the app still targets WP8.0 and should run on 8.0, it now is designed for 8.1 compatibility (especially the AllCapabilities version).
Previous update (0.5.6): This version is mostly bug fixes and UI changes. The biggest changes are: clearer display of weird registry data types, the server now consumes fewer threads (it used to spawn them with wild abandon) and does faster string compares, the app version is now shown on the phone, error pages are now better, if you launch the app without a WiFi IP address it'll offer to take you to the WiFi settings page, connections are no longer closed as soon as the app starts sending a response, and the server now defaults to using the Connection: keep-alive header, with a two-minute timeout. The last change, combined with the second-to-last, should hopefully both do away with the tendency to have the app fail to display a page. However, I shouldn't have *needed* to switch it to "keep-alive" - using "close" should have worked - but it still veeeery occasionally would kill the connection early. Agh. Anyhow, this is better in the meantime.
DevDB offers me a support / Q&A thread. Please use that thread to ask questions; don't PM me unless it needs to be kept private for some reason!
ISSUES ON WP8.1:
It *should* work to deploy the app with "Application Deployment", but if you have a problem try deploying with "Windows Phone Application Deployment 8.1" instead.
Problems have been reported in the past when the app is installed to the SD card. It's small, though; putting it on internal storage shouldn't be a problem.
RESOLVED The AllCapabilities version included a few capabilities that were present in 8.0 but removed in 8.1. Those capabilities have been removed; the AllCapabilities version now deploys and runs on capability-unlocked WP8.1 phones.
IN CASE OF OTHER ISSUES: Please provide a *detailed* error report - what phone and OS version you have, what hacks you've installed, what Webserver version you're running, what you do to get the error to occur, and exactly *what* occurs - and I'll fix it as soon as I can! There's a DevDB section for posting bug reports, and you can also use CodePlex if you want.
I finally implemented file upload! I'll work on getting more stuff like that (file delete, possibly file rename/move/copy, various registry edits), hopefully soon! I also hope to add support for different areas, like an "Applications" path, a "Processes" path, a "Services" path... eventually. Many of those are really hard without good privileges. I'm also looking at moving the server to a background process and making the app just a control UI for it, adding support for authentication and/or HTTPS, adding some stylesheets to the web UI, adding caching, and much more. I did finally implement Connection header support.
Once again, the XAP is published twice. One is a fairly standard XAP that any phone can sideload, and the second has many exotic capabilities to enable viewing of (and writing to) slightly more of the file system and registry. The standard XAP has had its list of capabilities expanded to pretty much all of them that can be used without interop-unlock. The high-capability variant requires not just interop-unlock, but the additional capability-unlock hack available in the interop-unlock thread. The AllCapabilities version now works with WP8.1; sorry for the long delay on that!
An item of note: the AllCapabilities version (or either version, on WP8.1) can open other drives in the file system. On phones with an SD card, it is mounted at D: and you can browse it as normal. Credit to @hjc4869 for this discovery!
DESCRIPTION: This is a simple webserver app which can enumerate those files that are in folders readable from the sandbox, can download and upload (access permitting) files, can browse the registry, and can display the contents of registry values of any type. It runs on WP8.x (not yet tested on W10M). It is a spiritual successor to the Functional Webserver / WebServer (Mango) projects from WP7. This version is still missing a lot of functionality as I decided to implement it from scratch, but it is advancing swiftly. Note that there's no access controls implemented; use it on a public network only at your own risk!
Instructions are simple: sideload the XAP, connect to WiFi (required), run the app (called "WebServer Native Access"), point a web browser (on a PC or phone that is also on that local network) to the URL that the app displays. You should get a basic index page. Click on a Filesystem or Registry link to begin browsing the phone. There's a textbox near the top of all filesystem pages, type in a path there (for example, "C:windows" with no quotes) and hit Enter or click Get Files. You'll see a list of the contents of that folder. Click on a file to download it or a directory to open it. There's also a box for uploading files, one at a time, to the current directory. Navigating the registry is similar, except you'll need to specify the registry hive and then the path from that hive (or no path, to access the root of the hive).
As of v0.6.0, uploading files is finally supported! Other modifications (editing files, creating, deleting, or changing registry keys or values) are currently not supported. They will be "soon" although my personal testing suggests that basically the whole registry, and most of the file system, is off-limits for writing unless you use restricted capabilities.
You might see an error code (error 5 is "ACCESS_DENIED", you'll see it a lot; I should replace it with an appropriate 403 or whatever). Or you might see a status 500 message because of an exception in the server. Or the server may just crash (hopefully not so often anymore...). I'm making it more resilient, but there are still bugs. Please report any previously-unreported issues you find, including how to reproduce them, and I'll fix them if possible.
Also feel free to request features or changes; I'll implement them if reasonably possible. The app is a mixture of C++ and C# code; I could probably have done it all in one or the other but wanted to have a C++ component in case I ran into something that wasn't available in C#, and although it probably would have saved some time, I decided that hacking up a web server in C++ was maybe not the best idea.
The source code is on Codeplex, at the following projects: https://wp8webserver.codeplex.com/ for the server and the app (C#) and https://wp8nativeaccess.codeplex.com/ for the native access wrappers (C++). You may have to fix up the reference paths to get the C# component to see the C++ component correctly. The code is reasonably well documented, but let me know if you have any questions. Permission to re-use the code or components is granted under the MS-PL (Microsoft Permissive License) as posted on Codeplex.
Go forth and find cool stuff!
Version history (see the git commit logs for more detail:
07 July 2013 - 0.2.0: Initial release, FS only, 920 downloads (source: 652 downloads)
14 July 2013 - 0.3.2: initial registry, HTTP server and web app encapsulation, source on Codeplex, 225 downloads
0.3.3: bugfixes, 454 downloads
0.4.2: basic registry values display, 86 downloads
0.4.3: bugfixes, 326 downloads
0.4.6: multistring registry values, bugfixes, updated libraries, first AllCapabilities version (950 downloads), 453 downloads
25 Oct 2013 - 0.4.8: binary and long registry values, formatting and bugfixes, 451 downloads AllCaps, 201 normal
22 Dec 2013 - 0.4.9: all registry value types, better threading, proper resume, remembers port, 97 downloads AllCaps, 53 normal
24 Dec 2013 - 0.5.0: background operation using Location APIs. Downloads: 1011 AllCaps, 963 Normal
20 Jul 2014 - 0.5.1: More capabilities, better navigation. Downloads: 358 AllCaps, 352 normal
07 Aug 2014 - 0.5.3: .REG export, better traversal, bugfixes. Downloads as of 0.5.5 release: 260 AllCaps, 164 normal
10 Oct 2014 - 0.5.5: Bugfixes and back-end work. Downloads as of 0.6.0 release: 140 AllCaps, 113 normal
25 Oct 2014 - 0.5.6: Bugfixes and UI tweaks. Downloads as of 0.6.0 release: 1720 AllCaps, 1334 normal
12 Oct 2015 - 0.6.0: Binary requests, file uploads, bugfixes.
XDA:DevDB Information
WebServer Native Access, Tool/Utility for the Windows Phone 8 General
Contributors
GoodDayToDie
Source Code: https://wp8webserver.codeplex.com/
Version Information
Status: Alpha
Created 2014-10-17
Last Updated 2015-10-12
I'm going to use this space to mention something that's pretty cool:
J. Arturo of http://www.komodosoft.net is using a modified version of the HTTP server that powers this app in the ShareFolder app (http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=e2b9c82e-eaa1-4a3b-9d4a-8a2933a8bdb4) to support opening video files directly from Windows network shares! This was done to work around a limitation of the WP8 media control: it can only source from an isolated storage file or a HTTP URL. By running a server in the background and streaming the video file through it, and pointing the video player control at the localhost URL, it becomes possible to play the file on the phone without first copying it to the app's isolated storage. A very cool way to solve the problem! Also, reviewing the changes that were made to the network code of the server pointed me toward those threading fixes I made that have hopefully much improved version 0.4.9.
Please note that the updated version of ShareFolder with this feature may not yet be available, although it should be soon. It is a commercial (paid) app, but the author sought and received permission to use my code (although the license does not require such permission be received).
What exactly is the problem with sockets? I am battling myself with sockets atm too, maybe we can share knowledge?
Strictly speaking, the problem was with the phone's limited subset of the Sockets API forcing me to access it through functions I wouldn't normally use (asynchronous everything, SocketAsyncEventArgs and lambdas and AutoResetEvents and so on everywhere...) but I've got a pretty good handle on it now, at least for the System.Net.Sockets.Socket and its friends. The new .NET 4.x ones (using the async keyword and all) are in a different namespace; I didn't mess with them. They are more abstracted from the Bekeley sockets interface that I'm used to from C, but they are also (supposedly) more user-friendly, especially if you don't feel like writing all your own thread management code (and in fairness, I should re-write the webserver's threading to use threadpools; they're better for this type of work).
If you want to ask questions about the topic, I suggest starting a new thread (possibly in the Q&A subforum, although it's also dev related...) and I'll answer if I can.
GoodDayToDie, just an idea: how about sharing your source code via CodePlex or GitHub?
Oh man, this is pretty nice! GoodDayToDie does it again!
So far, I can read \Windows, the current install folder which you access just by typing "." with no quotes and the current application folder by typing ".." I can access the .dlls, .winmd and AppManifest.xml from the current install, but from everywhere else, it goes boom. This is a great step towards something awesome though!
EDIT:
I was wrong. For some reason, when you click on a folder it's trying to "download" it, rather than chdir. I can get pretty far into the Windows directory.
THAT's what you meant by "Click on a file (note: there's no current way to tell the difference between files and folders) to download it.
You might see an error code (error 5 is "ACCESS_DENIED", you'll see it a lot). Or you might see a status 500 message because of an exception in the server. It's getting a lot more resilient but there are surely still some bugs. ".
If you see a folder, just type the full path to it instead of clicking on it and you will be able to read the contents.
ANOTHER EDIT:
I just found a file inside of the \Windows\System32 directory named [guid].devicemetadata-ms (It's easier to just search for "devicemetadata-ms"). It's a cab file with some metadata about WP8 with a sign.cat and packagesign.cat file in the archive. I don't know what these files could potentially be useful for.
New version in a day or two (busy tonight). Features I plan to implement (not necessarily in the next version or at any particular time):
File upload (IsoStore and, of all crazy things, install directory are writable. I think I'll put a flag on each FS page that says whether the current dir is writable...).
File deletion (where possible, of course).
File and Directory distinction in the listing (clicking a dir should open it, not error out).
Filesystem index page with links to folders that can be accessed successfully (since the root isn't readable).
Some more file info (size, probably attributes, possibly permissions).
Possibly an option to preview a file (as plain text) without downloading it.
Some kind of background mode (the server uses minimal resources when not actively servicing a request, so I'll see if I can get it to work in the background, perhaps by abusing the music transfer agent...)
Some kind of offline mode (at least basic file browsing within the app, as an alternative to using the web interface, though I might just make a second app for that).
Source code changes: separate the server code from the webapp / phone app code (move it into its own project).
Source code changes: move to a hosted version control service, probably CodePlex (good suggestion sensboston).
Maybe add an icon and such...
Any other suggestions?
I also want to try experimenting with various non-standard capabilities and see if I can get access to more of the system . I've already added the ability to access removable storage, but I've also found a bunch of really weird and frequently undocumented capabilities in the OS's policy configuration files, and I need to look into those... The interesting (and possibly the uninteresting) ones are probably blocked for unsigned sideloaded apps, but it's worth checking on anyhow.
Yeah sorry, I should have been more explicit about clicking on dirs. not working in 0.2.0. Also, it's "unofficial" but if you check the URL bar you'll see a URL parameter called something like "pattern" (by default, it's *) and if you change that, you can filter the results. For example, "foo*.exe" (note: no quotes!) will search for EXE files whose names start with "foo". Among other uses, this makes it a lot faster to load large dirs like System32. This will be added to the UI at some point. Also note that URL decoding is applied correctly to querystring parameters (Probably already noticed with the path sometimes written using %5C for \) so you can add special characters that way if needed, though currently any of them but \ will probably just cause an exception.
...
Actually, does this filesystem support Alternate Data Streams? If so, you should be able to download them by appending a : and the ADS name to the filename in the download URL...
OK, so that was a new version in five days. Sorry, stuff takes time.
The source code is now on Codeplex. The native access portion is at https://wp8nativeaccess.codeplex.com/, and the web server portion is at https://wp8webserver.codeplex.com/. Both are licensed MS-PL and use Git for version control. The full XAP is also available for download from the Webserver project on Codeplex.
GoodDayToDie said:
OK, so that was a new version in five days. Sorry, stuff takes time.
The source code is now on Codeplex. The native access portion is at https://wp8nativeaccess.codeplex.com/, and the web server portion is at https://wp8webserver.codeplex.com/. Both are licensed MS-PL and use Git for version control. The full XAP is also available for download from the Webserver project on Codeplex.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are a god. I'll be sure to post my findings .
Hmm. When I first load up WebServer File Access then access from my laptop, I get the main page then the program crashes on my phone. It seems to hold a lock on to the socket as i can no longer access port 9999 from any other device when re-opening the app. I can access it again when I reboot, but the same thing happens.
EDIT: I think it may be due to the WiFi at work... it's junky. I'll try again when I get home. I was just able to browse some directories.
Wow, that's completely unexpected... I can beef up the error chacking and handling around the listener port though. That part of the code is really straightforward, so I actually haven't hardened it very much. I can also put in a Finally block to close the socket and/or mark the socket as re-usable so that other apps (or the same one again) can listen on it in the future.
I also plan to add support for setting your own port, but that doesn't solve the underlying problem. I'll put in more error reporting as well, to enable better debugging. Thanks for the report! Always good to have users report problems so I know where to prioritize fixes.
GoodDayToDie said:
Wow, that's completely unexpected... I can beef up the error chacking and handling around the listener port though. That part of the code is really straightforward, so I actually haven't hardened it very much. I can also put in a Finally block to close the socket and/or mark the socket as re-usable so that other apps (or the same one again) can listen on it in the future.
I also plan to add support for setting your own port, but that doesn't solve the underlying problem. I'll put in more error reporting as well, to enable better debugging. Thanks for the report! Always good to have users report problems so I know where to prioritize fixes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried the app at home and it DOES crash on the first hit of the home page, but I'm able to open it up again and it works fine.
The new version 0.3.3 should be more rebust; try it and let me know if you still have issues. If you do, let me know what the exception message is (and any other info you can provide) and I'll try to track it down.
Downloading really big files should also work now. The app will read and push files in smaller chunks (the code to do this existed in the NativeAccess library before, but wasn't used).
a simple SDK?
Dear Sir
Will it be possible for you to make some sort of SDK from this so other developers can integrate this into their apps and enable browsing isolatedstorage?
Sorry if it is a stupid question.
Bruce_X_Lee said:
Dear Sir
Will it be possible for you to make some sort of SDK from this so other developers can integrate this into their apps and enable browsing isolatedstorage?
Sorry if it is a stupid question.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With the restrictions in permissions, this app only allows browsing of the app's isolatedstorage locally. You are able to use the IsolatedStorage API within your app to browse files and directories already.
snickler said:
With the restrictions in permissions, this app only allows browsing of the app's isolatedstorage locally. You are able to use the IsolatedStorage API within your app to browse files and directories already.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's right. What I want is to allow the end user to be able to browse the isolatedstorage. Imagine I have a video download app, I want the user to be able to transfer those downloaded videos from the app's isolated storage to, say, a PC.
One can do this by integrating the webserver code into the said app.
Bruce_X_Lee said:
That's right. What I want is to allow the end user to be able to browse the isolatedstorage. Imagine I have a video download app, I want the user to be able to transfer those downloaded videos from the app's isolated storage to, say, a PC.
One can do this by integrating the webserver code into the said app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahh I see what you mean now. That sounds like a pretty nice idea. I think more research needs to be done to see whether it would even be allowed in the marketplace.
The webserver portion is stand-alone (builds to its own .NET DLL with no dependencies on the other parts) and has a pretty clean interface. You'd need to implement the web application portion of it yourself - the thing that generates the response pages for a given request - but the HttpResponse class in the server does a lot of the work of that for you; you basically just specify the content you want to send (as a String or byte array) and it sends it.
I just got a Shield TV, and I love it. I'm probably going to root it tonight to tinker further.
One issue I have with it is how annoying it is to configure, side-load apps, upload files to, etc. I'd love to have a web console for it, and I'm willing to do most/all of the heavy lifting for the front-end and server-side web development perspective. I'm going to need help on other fronts, however.
I'm a full-stack web developer. Most of what I've done professionally is PHP, but I'm not married to that. I'm also pretty good at configuring apache/nginx/ha-proxy/etc. Though once upon a time, I wrote front-end applications in Java and C++, that's ancient history, and I don't really have time to re-learn those skills and the Android SDK. Also, I'm not much of a designer, so unless I'm just using a pretty stock framework like Bootstrap, I'll need someone else to provide the art.
What I'm envisioning is an app that we can have in the play store that has a very simple UI to:
- install an SSH server
- install bash
- install web server/app server
- install DDNS client
- launch server on boot
- check server for new versions of the software it installed
Stuff I want the web interface to do:
- install/uninstall apps (file submission, URLs, etc.)
- 1-click installs of common things people want (Kodi, Amazon Prime Video, etc.)
- start/stop sshd
- manage mounting/unmounting NFS/AFS/CIFS/etc. shares (is this even possible on Android?)
- restart the device
- configure most settings on the device, including some hidden stuff
- file management
So, what I can do:
- script the download/install/upgrade of stuff on already rooted box in bash
- write back-end web code in PHP, Python, or Go
- write HTML/CSS/JS for front-end
What I need help with:
- writing the Android TV app to trigger the install script
- some help understanding/bootstrapping the process (what's installed by default on Android? What's the minimum we can get away with? Do we need Python?)
- someone to design the app (honestly, this can wait until we've got a baseline functionality if we like)
Anyone interested in joining me?
I'm leaning towards Go for the web app, because the binary can (in theory) be deployed standalone, and can be its own web server, obviating the need for apache or nginx or whatever. Also, performance and memory utilization -- PHP and Python are fairly expensive to run, and this is a really minor background thing.
This would be open source on Github.
While I unfortunately don't have a machine to helpwith code, nor the time for the code, I thought I'd give you a dev/modders look on the possibility/dificulty of things. Please don't think that I am discredditing this idea, in fact, I like it. Just want to passibly help you consider dev order and dificulty oy each item as listed, and hopefully add my own as others may have interest.
- install/uninstall apps (file submission, URLs, etc.) <-- Would be pretty easy. Users should provide apks, or you'll need a site that stores a lot of them.
- 1-click installs of common things people want (Kodi, Amazon Prime Video, etc.) <-- Similar to last point. You'll have to have a mirror of updated apks, weather you or another host provides it. You'll probably need a web scraper if going to an external host.
- start/stop sshd <-- I suggest dropbear, even if it's not my cup of tea. It can be easily found in other apps and should find code in open source ones to get you started.
- manage mounting/unmounting NFS/AFS/CIFS/etc. shares (is this even possible on Android?) <-- can be done. Check Kodi or other open source apps for code, though there are usually caviats to each approach. Luckly Android has fuse in most kernels these days.
- restart the device <-- Very easy
- configure most settings on the device, including some hidden stuff <-- Gonna be a long process, but you can probably reverse engeneer the apks and parse the XML files for a shortcut.
- file management <-- Super easy. Use the ssh server, or adb connection.
Over all, I think a lot of this is possible. Luckly these machines have the beef for a web server, and several are ported last I checked, though they may be out of date. Even still, check their codebase for a massive head start as they are mostly required to keep open source by licence (Apache excluded, though some still are). I would also suggest these features as they would be somewhat easy to imprement once the base file management is started, and would broaden the scope to bring in more users, support and interest, and hopefully devs.
-Rom Manager for emulators.
Mass File Renamer based on Filebot (Both are java, so should not be TOO hard to port) as many buy this box for Kodi.
I'll think of more.
I'm not an app dev, though I do rom modding and sometimes porting, and I can offer insite to things, so if you have questions on specifics, please pm me. If I get some free time, and a dev machine, I'll let you know antd get things going in the right direction. May also want to, once this idea is flushed out, post something in a more general android TV/ App Development thread for cleanness and to get devs on board (don't post in dev till there is code to show on github though please.
Something like remix os would be nice, this x1 has a lots of power
Sent from my trltetmo using Tapatalk
This is a great idea. This device is in serious need of developer attention. Im not a dev at all but Ive gotten pretty familiar with this device and Android OS in general, especially after spending so much time digging around trying to make android things happen that apparently were not indended for Android TV. I will be more than happy to be a tester and keep up so as to offer any ideas and some of the ways Ive found to do stuff.
@kdb424 - Thanks for the info. I'm working on a prototype right now. First build is going to list a bunch of stuff from the setting status, and allow you to reboot the device. I'll post the Github repo when I have that.
Great ideas!
There is a tool sorta in development already that does a lot of this (I've mentioned it on the Shield Zone a couple of times)
https://sites.google.com/site/nvidiashieldtvutilityapp/home/
My main needs (personally) is a means to move files to and from and my current solution is a free FTP server that works even when the Shield TV is sleeping.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.theolivetree.ftpserver
... works very well despite having to side load, has a terrible interface, etc. Set and forget. What's great is, I can use my file-manager-on-steroids Directory Opus to manage files since it is a standard FTP connection.
@darkuni - Yeah, I saw that, but I've got no Windows PC's in the house -- 2 Macs, a Chromebook, a Linux server, phones and tablets. I'm an old-school UNIX guy, and Windows doesn't strike my fancy. Plus, it seems like the sort of thing a web app is best for. No need for a fat client.
darkuni said:
Great ideas!
My main needs (personally) is a means to move files to and from and my current solution is a free FTP server that works even when the Shield TV is sleeping.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.theolivetree.ftpserver
... works very well despite having to side load, has a terrible interface, etc. Set and forget. What's great is, I can use my file-manager-on-steroids Directory Opus to manage files since it is a standard FTP connection.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for that I'll give it a go. I use ES file manager currently but it closes the server when you exit the app. Will also try this on a couple of FireTV Sticks I have dotted around the house as Kodi boxes :good:
While looking for something completely different, I stumbled across this and thought some people might find it interesting:
Turn an old eReader into an Information Screen (Nook STR) – Terence Eden’s Blog
shkspr.mobi
I wouldn't fixed NST to a wall and think that I have read here about app used here to do that job. Either someone is gonna fix TLS issue or maybe if we assume using NST as display it could be possible to use home Wi-Fi router or mobile phone as secure server or part of VPN that will negotiate TLS issue for NST. I always doubted slightly that NST can offer full internet browser experience but something in line of htttp web grab in reader mode might be good enough for some application. News (RSS), weather and I believe that maybe EPG TV guide are not impossible to accomplish. Only question about this remains will NST embedded HTML browser will be good for the job of showing the grab from web pages or is Opera in reader mode better for such job. Time to look up for a good web grabber...
SJT75 said:
I wouldn't fixed NST to a wall and think that I have read here about app used here to do that job. Either someone is gonna fix TLS issue or maybe if we assume using NST as display it could be possible to use home Wi-Fi router or mobile phone as secure server or part of VPN that will negotiate TLS issue for NST. I always doubted slightly that NST can offer full internet browser experience but something in line of htttp web grab in reader mode might be good enough for some application. News (RSS), weather and I believe that maybe EPG TV guide are not impossible to accomplish. Only question about this remains will NST embedded HTML browser will be good for the job of showing the grab from web pages or is Opera in reader mode better for such job. Time to look up for a good web grabber...
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Curl can often bypass SSL checks and grab web content. It runs on the NST. I've used it in a few of my apps. Whether the data it gets can be used by the app the blogger mentions is something else.
@nmyshkin that is nice idea! And seems exactly in line of what I wrote. I do not know is curl accessible from Android layer. I pondered the same thought more in line of trying to use port of Lynx to Android I have seen someone did although who knows is that possible to do on this version of Android?
I've written a status app (that I never use).
It polls two different servers for JSON info and displays it using regular Android graphics stuff.
It uses Retrofit for polling.
And one more! (although this one uses a Sony PRS-T1)
Reusing my ebook reader – Fluffyelephant
Hmm, you got me thinking about this stuff.
There's the whole let the Nook poll some data service and display it on a web browser sort of thing.
I don't really need or want that.
I was thinking more of like as a status output device for a headless Raspberry Pi.
No, not as a terminal, more like status for a solar/home/whatever system.
The Nook doesn't poll anything, it just sits there waiting for text or graphics.
But here's the part I like, you don't use any WiFi.
You just plug your Nook into the Raspberry Pi.
Of course it has adb.
You can get adb for Raspberry Pi: sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb
Now you can set up port forwarding:
Code:
[email protected]:~ $ adb forward tcp:6666 tcp:6666
Then all you need is something on the RPi to connect to port 6666 and spit out stuff.
On the Nook you need an app to serve port 6666 and do display stuff.
I've already made a clock as proof of concept and it works fine.
You could just use text fields or compose a whole graphic frame on the RPi and send that over.
Heck, if you send whole frames you wouldn't even need to run the Android subsytem.
I could probably get that working on a Kobo.
A very sophisticated example follows.
It allows you to individually update separate fields.
These could be in tables with borders or labels or whatever.
Edit: Okay, a better screenshot.
You know, the thing I like about this is that the NST is the server.
It's a bit like running X11, but much more lightweight.
And if you want you can still run this over WiFi instead of ADB forwarding.
This electric sign app is really close to something I'm looking for. What I'd like to do is, instead of a screenshot of a URI, to take a screenshot of what I've got open in the device.
I'd like to use this with Google Calendar, and Opera Mini surprisingly seems to work with the HTML version. I think Opera Mini keeps the calendar updating with AJAX or something, so all I'd need an app like this to do would be to, when it's running, take a screenshot of what's on the screen right before sleeping and set that as wallpaper, then wake every X minutes, screencap what's there and go back to sleep with that as the new wallpaper. The end result should be an always-on, low power Google Calendar.
EDIT: For anyone looking later, I was wrong. Opera Mini does not keep updating Google Calendar, you have to refresh it manually, which makes this slightly more complicated...
jptiger said:
This electric sign app is really close to something I'm looking for. What I'd like to do is, instead of a screenshot of a URI, to take a screenshot of what I've got open in the device.
I'd like to use this with Google Calendar, and Opera Mini surprisingly seems to work with the HTML version. I think Opera Mini keeps the calendar updating with AJAX or something, so all I'd need an app like this to do would be to, when it's running, take a screenshot of what's on the screen right before sleeping and set that as wallpaper, then wake every X minutes, screencap what's there and go back to sleep with that as the new wallpaper. The end result should be an always-on, low power Google Calendar.
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Somewhere on the site there is a discussion of a setup that copies the current screen into a screensaver folder so that, for example, a map remains visible when the device sleeps. Search for it.
Edit: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/q-fridge-calendar.3057759/#post-59527882
Edit: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...uestion-o-noob-friendly.2941262/post-57216860
Eh, I'm not fond of browser-based anything,
For plain HTML stuff you could throw something together with Webkit instead.
For the adventurous you could use the Google Calendar API
Renate said:
Eh, I'm not fond of browser-based anything,
For plain HTML stuff you could throw something together with Webkit instead.
For the adventurous you could use the Google Calendar API
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I tend to agree with you. As I already wrote above something akin to Pocket/ReadItLater and similar might be accomplished using simple web grab I presume and offline HTML browser. I have thought that it looks odd that beside "hidden" (and sadly for us practically unusable) browser NST have another HTML viewer. Reason for that might be it was intended to be used for B&N "browsing" through their shop that they periodically download to NST or maybe for presentation of e-book material of older type that was for all intents and purposes just web archived HTML page or perhaps for viewing magazines purchased through B&N.
In essence even epub use elements of CSS/HTML but that is another story. Maybe it could be possible to make some poor man Pocket like offline browser if we somehow find the way to cobble together parts of some RSS, bookmarks syncing, e-mail listing, forum/blog viewer and approach that me or nmyshkin proposed here. In my opinion hardest part if some web grab is possible would be to render it in usable form for this device. That mean turning of ads, flash/video, loading pictures only on demand (or better in on/off way) and show only text information. Now what "browser" is suitable for this is yet to determine. I know that very old Opera could turn off animation an pictures but as I remember it did that in such way that it didn't download them at all to save bandwidth. Maybe it could be somehow set to load web archives in such manner? Think about it as giving an command that some web page be "printed as epub". It might be to large task to accomplish. Pocket worked if I remember right in such way that selected page was sent to dedicated server which did the trimming part for user and allowing him/her to download that content on other device to be read later on. Here I think that if we could sync for example one of bookmark folders from a computer with NST and achieve web grab of those links in usable form we might have something. It is a matter for the debate isn't Opera mobile and style management already wrote on here in forum same or even better. Problem would be that page reformat/rendering would be tasked to NST itself and I am not sure if it is up to the task or am I capable to cobble such thing alone for that matter. Something flashed in my mind didn't Calibre had some news reader? If it does then I am inventing the wheel here. Still it would be nice to be able to have some even limited ability to open a link to a news story from RSS feed or a forum/blog we follow or e-mail listing etc.
For Calendar I hope that some kind of dedicated app combining Calendar, planner and to do list can be found to already exist for this device.
Did anyone inspected this option? https://greycoder.com/a-list-of-text-only-new-sites/ It might be interesting
SJT75 said:
Did anyone inspected this option? https://greycoder.com/a-list-of-text-only-new-sites/ It might be interesting
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Thanks for these! The ersatz Google News is amazing in that even the external links are text-only! It makes my Google News app obsolete! Great with Opera Mini. Many, many things to look at there
nmyshkin said:
Thanks for these! The ersatz Google News is amazing in that even the external links are text-only! It makes my Google News app obsolete! Great with Opera Mini. Many, many things to look at there
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I am glad that I have contributed with something useful. As have already guessed from mine posts in this thread I have contemplated heavily about what could be more useful for NST some text-only browser akin to old trusty Lynx or some rewrite/redefinition of working Opera. One thing lead to another and at first I thought to maybe open and disclosed source for firefox readability extension/addon ported for working version of Opera somehow is a way to go but as I always check all aspects of mine quirky ideas I stumbled upon this. It is poor man solution but as I remembered that you follow NPR and they have text mode only site felt obliged to mention it here.
In line with nmyshkin's idea of using curl if some information display akin to the one linked in the first post is needed does something like cron from Linux can be run on NST?
"Print as epub" exist as web form. Here is the result of that one. https://dotepub.com/ I tried to use online form there and results were mediocre but as I understand they also offer their API to developers etc. That I presume might draw attention from someone on xda.
In defense of the intended idea for using NST as info screen arguably touch technology it uses is best for those screens. Mine guess is that its deemed as such because it is most easily scalable from the currently available techniques. This also raise the question why B&N did not already made readers of much larger format like A4 paper size screen. Is the display cost really that high and prohibitive? On the other news rumors have spread that they have partnered with Lenovo not only for the new generation of tablets but also for new e-readers. Has anyone find some leek about possible specifications?
SJT75 said:
... rumors have spread ...
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Say, what? After my buying a Poke3?
Edit: See https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/no...ovo-barnes-noble/1139012795?ean=9780594080503
1200 x 800 for a 10" = 144 DPI, not drop dead impressive.
I agree. Cheap bastards! I can't say is that 149DPI good for LCD screen but is sub par for e-reader. They obviously targeted minimum resolution comparable to low resolution printing and hope to get away with it. Considered that I expressed criticism to level of development of current color e-ink technology being bellow resolution of NST by about 60% you can bet I find this to little question is does it comes to late for B&N. Still I am more interested about e-ink display device that rumor say is also planned but nothing is revealed so far.
Renate said:
Say, what? After my buying a Poke3?
Edit: See https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/no...ovo-barnes-noble/1139012795?ean=9780594080503
1200 x 800 for a 10" = 144 DPI, not drop dead impressive
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Nothing to report that is mine work now still in the spirit of this thread I want to post few links with things people did with e-ink screens that might be done with NST also.
1. Raspberry Pi powered news scrapper - something Renate might like as she as I understood work on something similar
https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/ksgomp
2. Weather display that I believe was made using software already mentioned somewhere on forum
https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/lcyos9
3. Something completely different! Device made as platform to enable development many things e-ink made. Link shows RSS implementation.
4. In the old days when e-readers were unobtainable on my location I was in desperation contemplating the idea to convert available photo frames to a e-reader. This is as you guess the other way around.
https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/liadda
5. Someone developed site for games for e-ink screen as I understood browser only
https://e-ink.club/index.php There is in my opinion plenty of room for some sort of games on e-ink and this is not comprehensive list but it is nice someone started a dedicated page/project for that.