Android App - where did the old options go (like download now)?

Ferguson · November 22, 2015

I don't update my android very often, so not sure how "new" the new Android app is, but I installed it recently. I like the new look.

However, yesterday for some reason it didn't pull down my gallery overnight that I had uploaded the evening before.

So I went to settings to look at the status display, and manually ask it to download.... it's gone.

Is there an options panel I am missing?

How does one find the reason for the lack of downloads; it was very useful before.

And perhaps even more importantly, where's the "download now" button that was in there?

leftquark · November 22, 2015

This is really going to pain me to say ... Our Android app had a lot more features than the iOS app, and when we completely completely rebuilt them from the ground up (released a week ago) we wanted the 2 apps to have feature parity. As a result, the Android app lost some features that it previously had. I know this is disappointing but it's going to make it a lot easier for us to improve our smartphone apps going forward so we can bring you a better experience. The mobile team has a long roadmap to bring some of these features back (or in the iOS case, finally add it).

In terms of downloading a gallery, you should be able to mark it as "keep offline", though I don't think it imports it into your photos app. We do also have a number of extensions that the photos can be opened in. I'll have to ask the Android team on Monday

pilotdave · November 22, 2015

leftquark wrote: »

This is really going to pain me to say ... Our Android app had a lot more features than the iOS app, and when we completely completely rebuilt them from the ground up (released a week ago) we wanted the 2 apps to have feature parity. As a result, the Android app lost some features that it previously had. I know this is disappointing but it's going to make it a lot easier for us to improve our smartphone apps going forward so we can bring you a better experience. The mobile team has a long roadmap to bring some of these features back (or in the iOS case, finally add it).

In terms of downloading a gallery, you should be able to mark it as "keep offline", though I don't think it imports it into your photos app. We do also have a number of extensions that the photos can be opened in. I'll have to ask the Android team on Monday

Yep, remove features and add em to the feature requests list. Sounds like a plan.

Dave

Ferguson · November 23, 2015

leftquark wrote: »

In terms of downloading a gallery, you should be able to mark it as "keep offline", though I don't think it imports it into your photos app. We do also have a number of extensions that the photos can be opened in. I'll have to ask the Android team on Monday

No, that's not quite the point I think (not sure as I am not sure what you mean).

Galleries should download automatically, all the time, when your device is on wifi (if checked) and at least in the old program certain other conditions were met, I think it required being under AC power and not having downloaded very recently.

The key diagnostic is, you could look up what the most recent opportunity was and whether it connected, and if not, why not. It might say "too recent" or "not on wifi" or some such.

So you would quickly know if you had some issue.

But by far the more useful aspect was to be able to force a download. For example, if I just put a gallery up, and wanted to load up my phone with it RIGHT NOW and leave home, I could just hit the "force" button. I didn't have to plug it in and cross my fingers and hope it would download. AND I could see progress and tell when it was done.

Now I can't.

Definitely, absolutely, a step backwards.

Is there availability to get the old version back until you can retrofit? Do you put them somewhere on Smugmug for side loading?

I basically keep a copy of my Smugmug on my phone in case I need to show someone, since online browsing is MUCH slower (and uses a lot of data).

leftquark · November 23, 2015

I'll ask the Android team tomorrow if there's an old version that we can send to you.

Are you looking to just have the photos available, within the SM app, even if you're not on an Internet connection (or even if you are, to have them load instantly)? If that's the case, you can click "Available Offline" and you'll watch as all of the photos in the gallery are instantly downloaded and available no matter what (or no) connection you have. It won't do it automatically, that feature is missing, you have to toggle "available offline" manually, but it would allow you to upload a gallery, make it available offline (I.e download it to your phone) and go. I do this all the time when I'm going on photo trips and know I won't have Internet access to get my SM photos. In the app settings (the gear icon in the upper left when I'm the SM home screen), there's even a section called "available offline content" which shows all the galleries downloaded to your phone.

Andy · November 23, 2015

Within a gallery, there's a toggle, "AVAILABLE OFFLINE" toggle it to yes (green) if you want that gallery offline.

Saving, upper right in a photo view, just tap, and get the menu, and click "Save to Device".

leftquark · November 23, 2015

Looks like the older versions of the SM app are no longer available, but any content you had previously downloaded should remain downloaded/available offline. Going forward you'll have to manually toggle the switch for new galleries you'd like, but that should do the trick.

Allen · November 23, 2015

What size photos get downloaded? Are these in a special cache under the app? My phone does not
have much memory left so is there a way to clear anything downloading?

Ferguson · November 23, 2015

Now I'm completely confused.

When I did the update of the android app, it APPEARED that it used all my old offline cache. I say that because, well, I still have 19 gigabytes still dedicated to "Smugmugfolio", and every gallery I look at (that was there before) has "Offline Available" showing and the little down arrow. There is a discrepancy - the android app says I have 16GB, but there's over 19GB in the folders, so I think it may be leaking a bit. But that's good -- it either automatically re-downloaded everything, or used the old copy.

Also, as I create new galleries, they are being tagged with "available offline" and do download.

So I'm unclear about the seeming expectation I need to toggle a switch. It is doing it automatically. Perhaps it is defaulting to the parent folder? I think that's the case, as I created a top level folder and it did not automatically download.

So I'm good with that in general, but am a bit lost about WHEN it downloads. I can control it doing it with wifi only (good).

But as an example - I got to a ball game the other night, the day after building a new gallery. I pulled out the phone to show someone their photo expecting it to be there, and the gallery was missing entirely. After a few seconds (obviously it was refreshing) it appeared, and I could watch it downloading files (I was on wifi there), but it was dirt slow, because I was on poor wifi.

The point is that it had not downloaded overnight as it used to. I don't know why.

Does it only download galleries which are viewed, and only when they are viewed?

The key aspect (and why I was asking about both status and download-now-button) is I don't want to have to manually keep up with that, I expect it to just be up to date. And indeed if it's defaulting based on the folder that's the "slide the slider" aspect. But will it always download, or do I have to remember to go to that folder and look at the gallery to "encourage" it?

And if the answer is "it should be automatic" that comes back to the status issue -- if it's not working, how do I tell what happened?

I'll try it again tonight when I shoot and upload, see if it comes down automatically without me looking at that folder.

leftquark · November 23, 2015

Allen wrote: »

What size photos get downloaded? Are these in a special cache under the app? My phone does not have much memory left so is there a way to clear anything downloading?

We'll download something larger than the resolution of your device so that it can be zoomed appropriately. The originals are only downloaded if you click "Save to Device" (or on iOS, to the Camera Roll).

When in the app, if you click "Settings" (the gear icon), you'll see "Available offline content" and it will show you how many MB are being cached by the app. You can then see which galleries have been downloaded. Click "Edit" and then you can remove any ones you'd like, to clear up space on your phone.

leftquark · November 23, 2015

Ferguson wrote: »

The point is that it had not downloaded overnight as it used to. I don't know why.

Does it only download galleries which are viewed, and only when they are viewed?

On our iOS app, only Galleries can be set to "Available Offline". On our Android app, Galleries AND Folders can be set to "Available Offline". Because you probably had the Folder set to "Available Offline", it began downloading the images as soon as the app was made aware that there was new content to grab.

Unlike the old version of Smugfolio, the new SmugMug Android app no longer looks for new galleries/photos in the background. You'll have to go into the App, and let either mark the gallery/folder as "Available Offline", or make it aware that there's a new gallery and let it start downloading. I've gone ahead and passed this feedback onto the Mobile team, as I can understand how it's useful to have it automatically download in the background and not have to worry about it.

Ferguson · November 23, 2015

leftquark wrote: »

Unlike the old version of Smugfolio, the new SmugMug Android app no longer looks for new galleries/photos in the background. You'll have to go into the App, and let either mark the gallery/folder as "Available Offline", or make it aware that there's a new gallery and let it start downloading. I've gone ahead and passed this feedback onto the Mobile team, as I can understand how it's useful to have it automatically download in the background and not have to worry about it.

Oh yes please. I can see where people who never had that feature may not think it is all that important, but once used to it doing that, it's going to be VERY hard to remember to go "prime" my phone when I go to events.

Please go find whoever wrote the original Android app and give them a raise.

Go find whoever wrote the IOS app and slap them (or equivalent politically correct "how could you be so stupid" message).

Seriously -- I think a key purpose for me is for the computer to remember to do things so I do not have to. To have to remind a computer to do something repetitively is, well, like having Google Maps ask me where something is. Like waking up early to tell my alarm when to go off.

Seriously... it's not like this is a world ending aspect, but what a step backwards. Didn't we have this "feature removal as you dumb things down" discussion elsewhere?

But... just to finish the thought... the "status" issue then is moot, since there's no need to look up why it failed overnight if it isn't going to run in background. So I guess that feature removal was consistent.

leftquark · November 23, 2015

Ferguson wrote: »

I can see where people who never had that feature may not think it is all that important,

I've fallen guilty to this: "Feature <x> isn't important to me, so it's really not a big deal", though this is one of the cases where I completely understand the value. I've had to manually import all of my photos into iPhoto, then tell iTunes to sync those galleries into my iPhone. It's a pain in the butt and I have to remember to do this every time I create a new gallery. It'd be much nicer if I only had to upload to SM and let it take care of putting it on my phone. Certainly a great feature request.

Allen · November 23, 2015

There is tons of room, why not wrap folder and gallery names at least to two lines. It's almost impossible
to separate most names.

Android App - where did the old options go (like download now)?

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