Inacurate | # 111 | 2010-07-31, 17:31 | Report

It would be like having a work setup and a home setup that defaults to defined directories based on connection! And yes, for that automatic syncing that I just know one day you are going to make a feature!

jonnenau | # 112 | 2010-07-31, 20:29 | Report

Wouldnt it be simpler just to have /DropBox/SomeFolder that would have your work and home folders. Set DropN900 to syncthe SomeFolder path and always on wlan keep it up to date. So its already doable, just a matter of modifying your dropbox folder structure a bit. And if you are on any wlan, does it matter if its your work or home wlan. And does it matter if you happen to sync home path at work too?

Automatic syncing is probably not going to come any time soon. I have much features to do before that. I am going to improve the syncing though.

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Last edited by jonnenau; 2010-07-31 at 20:31.

jonnenau | # 113 | 2010-08-01, 04:54 | Report

As requested recursive sync from the desired dropbox path! New confirmation dialog before anything is loaded. This way you'll have a change to cancel if the size is 400 mb while on 3G

Just tested getting my whole /Public folder: 99 files in 5 folders, total size of 221,7 mb. Biggest single file is 103,6 mb.

• I was running inside scratchbox, with 24/2 ADSL connection.
• Download was smooth and quite fast, maybe took a few minutes.
• Files writing instead is slow. Size of local folder now 176 mb (full would be 221,7mb). Nothing has seemingly crashed but I think file writing has stopped, maybe I have a bug in my data worker queue check function. All files are present locally but some of them are 0 bytes.

So downloading huge total size of files will leave the downloaded data in memory for a while before the file writing task is in turn. I had to make it a queue as if many file writing threads were running at the same time the UI on the N900 would start freezing for short periods of time. I think the processor or the hard drive could not handle it.

So to sum it up I would not suggest syncing folders with large size on the device. This was one of the reasons I hesitated on making recursive sync, I'm sure this wont brick anyones N900 but I would think crashing with this kind of action is very possible. One option is to find the limit and deny if the total sync size is too large for the device to handle. Even better I could make logic to do the sync in smaller parts, yes this is a good option. Folder at a time if size is too much.

I wont release this before have tested it better with large syncs on the device. I also have to make checks that no new syncs are started while data writing threads are still alive or in queue. In other case you would do duplicate DL/store for the same files that are still in queue waiting to be written the first time.

This sync that I took shots of will be no problem on the device. Stuff will fly to you over wlan

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Last edited by jonnenau; 2010-08-01 at 04:57.

jonnenau | # 114 | 2010-08-01, 20:56 | Report

dropn900-0.1.3-1 now available as a download/update!

• Bug fix: QTimers were not polling active threads due to gmainloopcontext.iteration() was blocking it.
• Bug fix: Download code was saying too early that file was ready, even 30mb files seemed to come in ~few seconds. This lead multiple downloads to be going at the same time, now only one at a time as intended from the beginning.
• New Feature: Recursive sync. Searches all subfolders for out of date or missing files and syncs them also
• Confirmation dialog of sync download. Lists total file count and size and for every folder separately.
• More checking on sync start, wont start if existing active transfers or data writing to disk
• UI updates to transfer widget to show total sync stats
• When you sync for example /Photos, it now goes to <default_dl_dir>/Photos

I have tested the recursive sync on the device with big amount of files with small size and small amount of files with bigger size. Here are my findings:

• ~32 mb with ~8 files, biggest file 28 mb. This is totally fine, the 28 mb file took 6 minutes to download with WLAN. But everything runs smooth and no errors.
• 390 kb with 171 files. This was fine also. Only thing that starts to become a bottle neck is UI as 171 items are pushed to the transfer widget at once and small files make the animation spinner swap from item to item very rapidly. I saw that it helps when you hold for a while before you start swiping to scroll the view, and do this slowly. No networking or file I/O errors.

Please test the recursive sync with your use cases and report of problems

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Last edited by jonnenau; 2010-08-01 at 21:01.

jonnenau | # 115 | 2010-08-02, 13:49 | Report

I'm trying to decide what to do next. I was thinking of the user suggested idea that there would be a option to sync all your camera images to dropbox. Now that I have thinked more on this, it would be a pretty sweet feature for a camera phone client. Today I talked with a iPhone user that has its dropbox client and it cant do this presently. On more inspecting the iPhone client seems to be very limited and mine seems to do almost more already (not saying its doing anything better though).

The feature would be upload sync only to a dropbox path. You could enable/disable camera photos syncing from the settings (disabled by default), if enabled you would define a path in your dropbox where the images are uploaded (in similar manner like you now select dl sync path). The picture check would be made at same time as you do the normal synchronization from the app main menu (or sync now button in settings, but i might remove this at some point).

Other option is to start doing upload sync. Please give your opinion what you would like to see next. Seems that this thread has gone a bit silent, but I take that as a good sign (there is no major problems for anyone)

I am also contemplating on the idea to promote my package to extras-testing. But maybe I'll wait for the upload and camera features to be complete first.

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Last edited by jonnenau; 2010-08-02 at 13:57.

Frank Banul | # 116 | 2010-08-02, 14:00 | Report

Well...

If I understand you correctly, what you are alluding to are two options.

A full download/upload recursive sync that links a directory on the N900 and a directory on dropbox with both download and upload sync.

An upload only sync that links a directory on the N900 (images) to a directory on dropbox.

If you want to be complete flexible, why not allow multiple directory pairs (N900 and dropbox) to be chosen for sync and then have both download and upload options for each entry. Then you don't have to guess the use cases.

BTW, I used DropN900 (I think you might need to change that name in the long run) instead of bluetooth to transfer my eCoach files this past weekend since that seemed to take fewer steps.

Frank

jonnenau | # 117 | 2010-08-02, 14:11 | Report

Well, yes implemeting links between local and dropbox folders could be one thing and then you could add as many as you want. Then I will need to make a proper UI for the synchronization. So you can select what path/paths you want to sync. This would be nice, actually would be nice to select/deselect from all subfolders/subpaths of the sync in a UI before doing any loading, kind of a improved version of the dialog I now have.

For the camera thing being separate upload only section in the settings: the idea is to keep UI and usage for users simple as possible. What if a user does not know where his camera shots are in the phone? Granted its quite easy to find, but still. You just enable a checkbox, select a path from a list and your done in 2 secs.

The mentality "give the most freedom and give the possibility to do anything" is not always the best approach. I want the ui to be user friendly, easy to understand and use. Hard to use applications often get ignored so I am trying keep that in mind when implementing stuff. I could do this local-path-to-dropbox-path linking, its a good idea. But on the side simplify the camera upload with a simple ui.

Frank Banul | # 118 | 2010-08-02, 14:16 | Report

I agree completely and considered this while posting. If you give complete flexibility, you would need to somehow educate people on common use cases otherwise they might not consider the options available to them.

Frank

jonnenau | # 119 | 2010-08-02, 14:18 | Report

Exactly, we are totally on the same page here. Someone might miss the idea "hey i could freaking link my camera folder to a dropbox path?! great" completely But I can do both, give pro users the flexibility and easy setup to sync your photos to a network storage

Thanks for the great idea and good to hear you have used my app for something useful!

dscobsct | # 120 | 2010-08-02, 14:24 | Report

i would like for recursive sync in both directions at the same time, so my folder on the pc has the same content as my folder on the phone no matter on which device i add the content, no fuss, just press sync.
the option to have other folders sync with different preferences , ie just upload for photos taken with the phone would also be great.
then id like you to port it to ubuntu as this will be way more functional than thier own pc app. only jokin on the last one there mate lol but its true nontheless.
great work dude