Android 2.0 with contacts backup, search, fingerprint locking, notifications and much more

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Originally published at: Android 2.0 with contacts backup, search, fingerprint locking, notifications and much more - Nextcloud

Today, the Android team releases the Nextcloud Android 2.0 app. This major release brings a massive number of improvements, from contact backup & restore, search, new authentication and fingerprint locking to notifications, reworked auto-upload and much more. Read on to find out what is new or check the Play Store for an update!

Major features

This release brings numerous significant improvements.

Contacts backup & restore

The Nextcloud Android app can backup the contacts on your phone to your Nextcloud Server and restore them back to a new phone.

Server search

You can now search for data on your server, including files you didn't download to your phone. Quick options in the sidebar for Favorites and Photos show you all favorites or photos from the server without actually having to download them. And like in the web interface, there is now a shared files view which will show you what files you have shared and are shared with you.

New authentication and fingerprint locking

Authentication on the server was reworked for this release, relying on the new authentication technology introduced in Nextcloud 12. This means any authentication technology used by the Nextcloud server is supported, from SAML, smart cards, various two-factor technologies and more, through a single, well-tested mechanism.

Fingerprint locking

Since this release, you can choose between setting a PIN code and fingerprint scanning to protect access to the Nextcloud app. The fingerprint locking relies on the Android fingerprint locking. So if you set this up for your phone’s unlocking you can simply activate for the app too now.

(Push) Notifications

Nextcloud servers notify users of new shared files, comments on files, calendar events, incoming calls and much more. The Android app now supports these notifications, showing them to users and even allowing real-time push notifications to reach users (on devices with Google Play installed).

Much improved auto-upload feature

Auto-upload was reworked to be much more reliable and supports all Android versions supported by the app (4.0+). You can configure images and videos separately, define custom folders for the auto-upload and keep modification times of uploaded files. Custom folders are only configurable if you enable the newly introduced expert mode via the app’s settings.

Many more improvements

Besides the major enhancements mentioned above, there has also been quite a lot of other improvements. Here is a quick list:
  • Theming support allows the new Android app show itself in the theme you picked on your server.
  • A new sorting dialog allows sorting ascending/descending for time/name/size.
  • The User information view shows you your user profile from the server
  • Custom external links support, when configured on the server, will show up in the client’s main menu
The app now also graciously deals with maintenance mode of the server, simply notifying the user rather than creating error messages; enables users to set edit permissions in federated shares of folders, has nicer error views for previews and can preview SVG files and more.

A major release like this means a big step forward for users and we’d love to hear your opinions! We have been testing it with our community for the last 6 weeks but if you encounter any problems, let us know, too!

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Nice update!! With cool nice features!

I’m wondering what the Export modus is doing. I will see some advanced information, what kind of information?

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FINALLY

Well done on the release folks - having run that last 38 RC’s it’s definitely a dramatic improvement on 1.4.x

Allows you to force a filesystem scan, retry failed uploads manually, etc - all of this is automated, which is why it’s hidden behind an expert mode :slight_smile: (oh, and logs too)

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But what about streaming videos, photos and music without download on Android? There’s already a pull request on GitHub.
Besides that, great update!

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Streaming of photos is planned for the next release or the release after. Likely 2.2 since we have a huge amount of smaller changes that will go into 2.1 already,but we’ll see… :slight_smile:

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Who need this feature?

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Moving data folder from /Android/data to /Android/media works perfectly. Now the media apps recognizes the audio, video, and image files without any hacks.
Thank you very much for this good and hard work!

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Is to possible to UPLOAD and then DELETE the uploaded local file in the phone?

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HI!

Is to possible to UPLOAD and then DELETE the uploaded local file in the
phone?

You can:

  • do not touch
  • move to app-directory
  • delete

after autouploads photos, videos and other datas.

ttyl
Django

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Any news about the iOS version?

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If you have marked files as favorites that you synchronize offline, the synchronization status will be deleted as soon as you go into the “Favorites” menu item in the app!

EDIT: Shared files (by link) lose their synchronization status after you go into the “Shared” menu item!

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This is the moment where one can ask if there is any QA happening at Nextcloud. Honestly, we cellebrate a supposed to be final 2.0 release with 119 bugs open as of the moment: https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Abug
Not counting the two you describe here …
QA at the production users!?

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It’s really nice update.

However, while syncing mobile contact - using Backup contacts - it sync only one contact not all. It creates .Contacts-Backup also. But the log shows – 404 File with name .Contacts-backup\/2017-10-18_10-25-06.vcf could not be located",“Exception”:“Sabre\\DAV\\Exception\\NotFound”,“Code”:0,“Trace”:"#0

The file created with name - 2017-10-18_10-25-06.vcf of 1KB.

We tried from two different mobile model using Android.

What could be the issue ?

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Hi Andy,
I aprecheate the new update with all the new features very mutch. Thank you so much!
One thing I’m missing is the possibilty to edit txt files like notes as it is in the IOS version. Do you mind to have this feature?

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Hi @sky
Editing of txt files is supported within the app, so that should work already and has been part of the app since release 1.
Please open an issue on github in case you are experiencing issues.
Glad you are enjoying the latest release:slight_smile:

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me

that was updated a short while ago, pop a topic in :green_apple: iOS if you need something.

GH issue! :cry:

Either 7 or 8 RCs before we hit 2.0 release, so plenty of testing. Ultimately the 1.4.x version was a dog and something needed to replace it to stop the topic after topic after topic of the same issues people were encountering. Bug fixes will continue to be pushed.

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Like @JasonBayton said we had 9 release candidates in total for more than 6 weeks in testing by more than 3000 beta testers and none of the above mentioned issues have been found or at least not been reported. Other than that linking the presence of reported bugs (no matter the amount) to no QA been done doesn’t make sense (to me).
The app gets bug fixes and also did in the past, other than that any issue that isn’t an enhancement is considered a bug even if that means the lack of a certain scenario working which is considered a must/should work by the developers and in contrast to an enhalncement doesn’t extend the app’s feature set.

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Realy? How should this work?
I’ve newer saw a “edit” button or menu entry and if I use open, it end up in another text viewer.
My OS = Lineage 7.1.2

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@sky what is the file extension of the file in question? I tried it with .txt on vanilla Android and it gets opened in the Nextcloud in-app editor.

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Argh… I am Sorry @sky … my mistake, the app opens the file but doesn’t allow editing. Corresponding issue is https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/126 but this hasn’t been picked up yet.

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