SoftwareApp
bb1187881b
The phone runs Android 12, so the questions that matter most for a release were exactly the ones it could not answer. Installed an API 35 AVD (sdkmanager was already present and dl.google.com reachable) rather than waiting for a public test track to report back. It found two user-visible defects, neither of which any test could have caught. On Android 13+ the app asked for no runtime permission at all, so the progress notification was dead. StorageAccessPolicy.missingPermissions returned an empty list from API 33 on the reasoning that "all files access" is a special permission and browsing therefore needs no runtime grant — true as far as browsing goes, but the early return also dropped POST_NOTIFICATIONS, and nothing else in the app requested it. startForeground still ran, so nothing crashed and all 203 tests passed, while dumpsys showed granted=false and importance=NONE. Settings could not fix that either, because Android will not let a user grant a permission the app has never asked for. The notification grant is now requested alongside the storage grant, which is the only moment Android accepts it. The four READ_MEDIA_* declarations were in the same position, and the manifest comment claiming they back thumbnails and viewers on Android 13+ was wrong. Coil loads both from a real filesystem path — the code comments already say "all-files mode only" — and the one MediaStore use is a best-effort delete request that "all files access" already covers. They were never requested, so they were never granted, so nothing could have depended on them. Removed, which also settles the checklist rule that declaring an unused permission is itself a policy violation. The selection bar drew its last three actions off the screen on a phone. With one archive selected it holds ten icon buttons, ~480 dp at the 48 dp minimum touch size against the 411 dp a phone has, and BottomAppBar is a plain Row that does not scroll. Compose laid the surplus out past the right edge: measured on a 1080 px screen the row ran Copy(167) to Compress(923-980, itself squeezed to 57 px) and stopped, so Extract here, Select all and Clear selection were unreachable, while the same selection in a 2400 px landscape window showed all ten. The logic was never wrong — ArchiveFormats.isExtractable had judged the .zip correctly — the app just looked like it could not extract. The action row now scrolls, verified by swiping it in portrait and seeing all ten appear. Verified on the AVD rather than only built: the notification dialog now appears and importance goes NONE -> DEFAULT, a real 220 MB copy posts notification 1001 on channel file-operations with ONGOING_EVENT|FOREGROUND_SERVICE and tears it down plus stops the service when done, edge-to-edge is correct under API 35s enforcement, predictive back returns from a folder and keeps the activity resumed, and Compress to ZIP produced an archive the host unzip read back with the right relative paths and contents. 204 JVM tests, lint clean, release artefacts re-measured.
File Manager
An ad-free, one-time-paid Android file manager. It browses and manages the files on your device — locally, with no ads, no account and no analytics.
Nothing ever leaves the device: the app declares no network permission and contains no advertising or tracking SDKs.
Working title. The display name and the store listing are decided before the first Play upload (see docs/ROADMAP.md, M10). The
applicationIdis already fixed and can never change after the first release.
Status
M10 — store assets: done. The app is named Plain Files, the icon and feature graphic are generated from the app's own vectors, and docs/STORE_LISTING.md holds length-checked listing copy. The screenshots are captured: 5 phone (1080×2160), 4 on a 7-inch tablet (1200×1920) and 4 on a 10-inch tablet (2560×1600).
Tech stack
| Area | Choice |
|---|---|
| Language | Kotlin 2.4.10 (using AGP 9 built-in Kotlin) |
| UI | Jetpack Compose, BOM 2026.06.01, Material 3 |
| Build | Gradle 9.3.1, Android Gradle Plugin 9.1.0 |
| Storage access | MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE ("All files access") with a Storage Access Framework fallback |
| Archives | Apache Commons Compress + XZ for Java (both pure Java — no NDK) |
| SDK levels | compileSdk/targetSdk 36, minSdk 26 |
targetSdk is 36 because Google Play requires new apps and updates to target
Android 16 (API 36) from 31 August 2026.
Project layout
app/src/main/java/de/softwareapp_hb/filemanager/
├── core/ Pure-Kotlin engine (no Android imports!) — paths, sorting, formatting,
│ search matching, copy/move planning, conflict policy
├── data/ Storage backends (all-files access + SAF), volumes, shares coming in
│ from other apps, the trash index (SQLite), file operations, archives,
│ deletion
├── domain/ Browser + operation controllers, models, permission state
├── service/ Foreground service for long-running file operations
├── ui/ Compose theme, browser screen, components, ViewModels
└── text/ Domain enum → string-resource mapping
app/src/test/java/… JVM unit tests for the core engine
core/ deliberately has no Android dependencies, so the trickiest logic is
covered by fast JVM tests.
Building
Prerequisites:
- JDK 17+ (JDK 25 verified)
- Android SDK with
platforms;android-36andbuild-tools;36.0.0
# Tell Gradle where the SDK lives (this file is git-ignored)
echo "sdk.dir=$HOME/Android/Sdk" > local.properties
./gradlew :app:assembleDebug # debug APK
./gradlew :app:testDebugUnitTest # JVM unit tests for the engine
./gradlew :app:lintDebug # Android Lint
./gradlew :app:bundleRelease # Play upload bundle (.aab)
Release signing is optional and driven by a git-ignored keystore.properties
(see keystore.properties.example); without it the release build still runs
R8/minification but produces an unsigned artefact.
Tracked in git
- Source, resources and Gradle build files.
docs/— roadmap and release documentation.PRIVACY.md,CHANGELOG.md, and (from M10)store-assets/.
Not tracked: local.properties, keystore.properties, *.jks, build outputs.
Releasing
Release signing is driven by the git-ignored keystore.properties (see
keystore.properties.example). Without that file the release build still runs R8 and
resource shrinking, but produces an unsigned artefact that cannot be uploaded.
./gradlew :app:bundleRelease # Play upload bundle (.aab)
./gradlew :app:assembleRelease # APK, for local checks
# Audit what is actually shipped — in particular that there is no INTERNET permission:
$ANDROID_HOME/build-tools/36.0.0/aapt2 dump permissions \
app/build/outputs/apk/release/app-release.apk
Read docs/PLAY_RELEASE_CHECKLIST.md before uploading. Step 4 is the one that matters most for this app: a file manager must declare "All files access" through Play's Permissions Declaration Form, and have the core purpose documented in its store description. PRIVACY.md is written to match the shipped permissions.
Localisation
All user-visible text lives in app/src/main/res/values/strings.xml, with real <plurals>
wherever a count can be one, and the screen and the progress notification resolve their
labels through text/TextRes.kt so the two cannot drift apart. English is currently the
only locale.
Adding a language is then a file, not a refactor:
app/src/main/res/values-de/strings.xml # same keys, translated values
Deliberately not localised, and why:
- Byte units ("KB", "MB") — symbols, not words, and every file manager and the system Settings app show them the same way.
- The timestamp pattern (
yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm) — a fixed, sortable format; the zone is passed in explicitly rather than assumed.
Checking that nothing was missed
Two things are easy to get wrong: a literal typed into a composable, and showing an enum
constant directly (FileKind.name puts untranslatable English on screen — the details
sheet used to do exactly that). The mechanical check is the pseudo-locale:
./gradlew :app:assembleDebug
# Settings > System > Languages > English (XA), then launch the debug build.
The debug build type sets isPseudoLocalesEnabled = true, so every string that came from
strings.xml renders accented and bracketed ([Îmàgé]). Anything that looks normal is a
string that never went through resources. The release build is unaffected.
One caveat: Google Play's automatic translation translates your store listing, not the app
UI. Translated UI text has to be supplied in values-<locale>/.
Known limitations
- The trash is a time window, not a bin you manage. A delete stages the item in a hidden
.plainfiles-trashfolder on the same volume and keeps it for 24 hours; the Trash entry in the overflow menu lists what is still there and puts a whole batch back. There is no "empty it now" action — expired batches are swept the next time something is deleted — and a name taken again in the meantime is never overwritten, so a restored item can arrive beside the new one rather than replacing it. - Where a trashed item came from is remembered in the app's own database, not on the volume. The staged files are the truth and the database is only an index, so the two are reconciled in both directions: an entry whose file has gone is not offered back, and a batch folder no entry mentions is swept.
- Sharing a file out only works in the all-files mode. A SAF path is relative to the
granted tree rather than a filesystem path, so it cannot be handed to
FileProvider. Receiving a share and being picked from another app's chooser work either way: the first needs no filesystem path, and the second falls back toRESULT_CANCELEDrather than returning a URI the caller could not read. - RAR, CAB, ISO and WIM are refused, not supported — they need native code, which this project deliberately does not ship. (The Commons Compress jar contains no RAR classes at all.) 7z is different: Commons Compress reads it in pure Java, so it is supported — but the format needs a seekable channel rather than a stream, because its header lives at the end of the file. All-files access can supply one; the SAF fallback cannot, so 7z extraction reports that plainly in folder mode instead of half-working.
- 7z files can be opened but not created — writing stays ZIP-only.
- Archive extraction does not restore original timestamps or permissions, and there is no archive encryption or password support.
- Cancellation happens between entries, so a single very large file finishes before a stop is honoured.
- View state is not persisted across process death (
SavedStateHandleis not wired up). - Long-press multi-select is awkward to script from the host. The gesture that opens the
selection bar (
input swipe x y x y 900) works on the MIUI test device but has also registered as a plain tap, so compress/extract from the UI wants a manual pass (see docs/EDGE_CASE_TESTING.md). - The display name is still the working title — decided before the first upload (M10).
Monetisation
One-time paid: €4.49 base, with a €2.29 launch price for the first 14 days. No ads, no subscription, no in-app purchases, no free tier.
The price lives on the Play listing, not in the build, which is why there is no Billing
client in the dependencies and no com.android.vending.BILLING permission in the APK —
that is what keeps "no network permission, nothing leaves your device" true of the
shipped artefact rather than just the source. Rationale, market anchors, the rejected
alternatives and the Console steps: docs/MONETISATION.md.
⚠️ The price must be set before the first upload — Play allows paid → free but never free → paid.
Licence
Proprietary — all rights reserved.