SoftwareApp
7985d33869
The R8 defect fixed in the previous change was invisible to every check that existed: it passed the whole unit suite, passed lint, and worked in the debug APK, and the release APK was the only thing that disagreed. Nothing in the process had ever run it. The checklist now has a section for that, placed with the artefact work rather than at the end, because the order in which the document is meant to be worked is build, run it, then declare things to Google. It carries the install commands (the release build is a separate package, so it can sit beside the debug one and be compared directly), the MIUI trap that a bare INSTALL_FAILED_USER_RESTRICTED means its dialog was answered late rather than that the APK is bad, the paths most worth walking (thumbnails, an operation long enough to show the notification, the two SQLite databases, each viewer, the FileProvider), a dumpsys check of what the installed build actually holds rather than what the APK declares, and the one instruction that matters when something differs - assume R8 removed something instead of assuming the feature is broken, because a class named only from a resource or reached only by reflection looks unused to a shrinker. A last item points the walk at the demo library from the screenshot section, so it is repeatable and a reviewer's own files stay out of it. Renumbering meant fixing four references: two inside the checklist, and one each in STORE_LISTING (the screenshot section is now 7) and MONETISATION (pricing is now 8). A checklist that points at the wrong step is worse than one that points nowhere, so they were traced rather than assumed. Section 3 also gets a fresh measurement, since its own rule is that a stale hash is worse than no hash because it reads as though it had been checked. The record it replaces was from 2026-10-15 and predated the library views, the duplicate finder and video thumbnails: the AAB is now 5 181 628 bytes (sha256 f053d90f...) and the APK 2 294 021 bytes (sha256 afe03dea...), both versionCode 1 / versionName 1.0.0 / targetSdk 36, with the permission set unchanged and still without INTERNET or any READ_MEDIA_*. Two smaller repairs came out of the same pass. A link added in the previous commit pointed at EDGE_CASE_TESTING.md from the repository root, where it does not resolve - the changelog's other links all carry the docs/ prefix - and that was found by writing a link checker and running it over every relative link in the markdown: 37 of them, none now broken. And the re-measure warning had ended up stated twice, once per measurement record, so it now appears once, after the newest numbers and immediately before the upload steps. Documentation only; no code changed, so the suite stands at 324 JVM tests and lint clean. The walk itself was done on the phone in the previous change - what is new is that the process now asks for it, which is the part that would have caught the defect in the first place.
10 KiB
Play Store listing (M10)
Ready-to-paste copy for the Main store listing page, plus the graphics that go with it. Every graphic is generated from the app's own vectors, so a rebrand is a re-run rather than a redraw.
See PLAY_RELEASE_CHECKLIST § 7 for where this fits in the release.
App name
Plain Files
Deliberately not "File Manager": dozens of apps are literally called that, and a distinctive
name is what makes a listing findable and rememberable. It is one string
(app_name in values/strings.xml); the applicationId is separate and already locked.
Graphics
./tools/make-store-assets.sh # icon + feature graphic -> store-assets/
./tools/make-store-screenshots.sh # phone -> screenshots/phone/
FORM_FACTOR=tablet-7in ./tools/make-store-screenshots.sh
FORM_FACTOR=tablet-10in ./tools/make-store-screenshots.sh
Screenshots
Play's slots, and what each needs:
| Slot | How many | Target here | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phone | 2–8 | screenshots/phone/ — 1080×2160 |
A phone at its native 1080×2400 is 2.22:1 and is rejected; the normaliser crops chrome and clamps to 2:1 |
| 7-inch tablet | 4+ recommended | screenshots/tablet-7in/ — 1200×1920 |
A tablet frame is already inside the 2:1 cap, so 0 px of crop |
| 10-inch tablet | 4+ recommended | screenshots/tablet-10in/ — 2560×1600 |
Landscape profile (matches the tablet10 AVD); Play accepts either orientation |
The library the shots are taken over
Never shoot over a real device's storage. Published screenshots are public, and a file list exposes real folder names and document titles. The library is generated instead:
python3 tools/make-demo-library.py # -> demo-files/ (git-ignored, ~161 MB)
adb push demo-files /sdcard/Download/PlainFiles-Demo
⚠️ The home screen and the library views need this more than a folder listing does. A library is
not a folder — it lists files from everywhere — so shooting Images on a real phone publishes the
owner's own filenames and thumbnails, and the home screen's counts publish how many files of each
kind the device holds. Both must be shot on a device, or an AVD, whose only storage is the demo
library. This was found by running the libraries on a real phone and seeing its owner's files in
them: EDGE_CASE_TESTING.
tools/make-demo-library.py builds eight distinct sample images (so the grid view and
thumbnails have something to show), a handful of documents, sized stand-ins for video and
audio so the storage-usage screen has something worth ranking, and a real ZIP so the extract
action can be exercised. Every name and every pixel is fake by construction.
One consequence worth knowing before shooting the Videos library: the video stand-ins are zero-filled, so they cannot be decoded and photograph as the fallback film icon rather than as a frame. A screenshot that shows video thumbnails needs a real clip, which is one command:
ffmpeg -f lavfi -i "testsrc2=duration=3:size=320x240:rate=15" -pix_fmt yuv420p clip.mp4 # synthetic, no camera needed
adb push clip.mp4 /sdcard/Download/PlainFiles-Demo/Video/
| Asset | Play's spec | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| App icon | 512×512, 32-bit PNG with alpha, ≤ 1 MB | store-assets/icon-512.png — 512×512, RGBA, ~5 KB |
tools/store-assets/icon.svg, mirroring ic_launcher_background.xml + ic_launcher_foreground.xml. Background, paths and opacities are identical, so the store icon is the launcher icon rather than a lookalike that drifts. |
| Feature graphic | 1024×500, JPEG or 24-bit PNG without alpha | store-assets/feature-graphic-1024x500.png — 1024×500, RGB |
tools/store-assets/feature-graphic.svg |
| Phone screenshots | no alpha, shorter side ≥ 320, longer side ≤ 3840, longer side ≤ 2× shorter | store-assets/screenshots/phone/ (1080×2160) |
tools/make-store-screenshots.sh, from adb captures in store-assets/raw-screenshots/phone/ |
Two details worth keeping:
- The icon is full bleed. The background rect covers all 108 dp, so every pixel is opaque and Play's mask can crop to any shape without showing a gap.
- A phone at its native 1080×2400 is 2.22:1 and is therefore rejected. The normaliser crops the status and navigation bars and then clamps to 1080×2160 — system chrome only, never app content. Tablets are already inside the 2:1 cap, so their crop defaults to 0.
The feature graphic's safe area
Play crops the feature graphic to a centre square for some placements, so all of the copy sits inside x 262…762 and the motif — which does not survive — is decoration. Verified by actually cropping the rendered PNG rather than by trusting the arithmetic:
magick store-assets/feature-graphic-1024x500.png -gravity Center -crop 500x500+0+0 +repage /tmp/square.png
Short description (80 characters max)
Browse, organise and manage your files. Ad-free, offline, pay once.
Full description (4000 characters max)
Plain Files is a straightforward file manager for Android — no ads, no account, no
subscription, and no network access at all. You buy it once and it is yours.
BROWSE ANYTHING
• Internal storage, SD cards and USB drives, side by side
• List or grid view, with sorting by name, size, date or type
• Breadcrumb navigation, and a search that can look in one folder or everywhere
• Hidden files on request
ANY SIZE OF SCREEN
• On a tablet or a wide window you get two panes: the folder list on the left, and what is
inside the folder you pick on the right — no jumping back and forth
• Pictures preview at full size beside the list, with their details
• The same layout on a phone, a 7-inch tablet and a 10-inch tablet
WORKS WITH YOUR OTHER APPS
• Share a file to Plain Files from anywhere, then pick the folder to drop it in
• Choose Plain Files when another app asks you for a file
• Search everywhere at once: an index means answers arrive right away instead of after a
long scan — and it always says how current it is
• Delete, rename or move by mistake? Undo it
MANAGE YOUR FILES
• Copy, move, rename and delete, one item or many at once
• Create folders and edit text files in the built-in editor
• See the details of anything: size, type, location, modified date
• Open a file in any app, or share it
FIND OUT WHERE THE SPACE WENT
• A storage-usage view that measures every folder and ranks it largest first
• Spot the folder that is actually eating your storage, then act on it
ARCHIVES
• Create ZIP archives, and extract ZIP, TAR, TAR.GZ, TAR.BZ2, TAR.XZ, GZ, BZ2, XZ and 7z
• Look inside an archive before you extract anything — text, images, documents, audio and
video included, read straight out of the file
• RAR is not supported — it needs native code this app does not ship, and it says so rather
than failing with a strange error
PRIVATE BY DEFAULT
• No INTERNET permission. The app cannot send your data anywhere, because it has no way to.
• No analytics, no advertising SDKs, no third-party trackers
• No account, no sign-in, nothing to remember
• Your files stay on your device, always
SOLD ONCE
• One purchase, every feature, no ads and nothing to buy inside the app
• No subscription
PERMISSIONS, EXPLAINED
Plain Files asks for "All files access" because that is what browsing and managing files
anywhere on a device requires — the app's core purpose. Google Play only grants this
permission to app types that genuinely need it, and a file manager is one of them. If you
would rather not grant it, the app still works: it can browse a folder you pick yourself
through Android's own folder picker, and it remembers that choice.
Read the privacy policy: https://example.invalid/plain-files/privacy
Replace the privacy-policy URL with the real public URL before publishing — a repository file is not acceptable to Play. PRIVACY.md is the source text.
Why the permission sentence matters
Play requires that an app's core functionality be prominently documented and promoted in
the app's description when it declares MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE. The "PERMISSIONS,
EXPLAINED" section is not marketing copy — it is the evidence the Permissions Declaration
Form asks for.
Ad headlines (App campaign, 30 characters each)
Google App campaigns take up to five headlines, and the system mixes and matches them, so each one has to stand on its own rather than continue the one before it. Counts include spaces and are measured, not estimated:
| Headline | Chars | Angle |
|---|---|---|
| Ad-free file manager | 20 | The whole pitch, in three words |
| Pay once, keep it forever | 25 | One-time price, no subscription |
| Works offline. No network. | 26 | The privacy claim the APK actually backs |
| SD cards and USB drives | 23 | Reach beyond internal storage |
| See where your storage went | 27 | The storage-usage view |
Spares, to swap in when an asset group wants a different emphasis: Two panes on your tablet
(24), Undo a delete you regret (24), Built for phones and tablets (28).
Three rules these are written to:
- Never "free". This is a paid app, so a headline implying otherwise is misleading as well as a policy problem. The launch price is the only discount, and it belongs in the price field, not in a headline.
- No superlatives. "Best", "top" and "#1" are unverifiable claims, and they are not how this app sells anyway — the differentiator is what it does not contain.
- Sentence case, no shouting. No all-caps text, no emoji, no stacked punctuation; Google's editorial policy refuses all three, and it matches the voice of the listing copy above.
The app name is taken from the store listing (App name above) and is not repeated in a headline.
Still to do before publishing
- Screenshots.
tools/make-store-screenshots.shis written and the raw-screenshot directories are in place, but no captures have been taken yet, sostore-assets/screenshots/is empty. Capture against a synthetic library — never a real one, since published screenshots would expose real file names. - Tablet screenshots. Play has a 7-inch and a 10-inch slot, each wanting 4+.