File Manager Comments

APH Products Monarch
1

This Android clutter is going to confuse many users:

“Alarms, AudioBooks, Books, DCM, Documents, Download, Lost.Dir, Movies, Music, Notifications, Pictures, Podcasts, Recordings, Ringtones.”

It fills the first ten lines of the display, plus adds all these empty folders to any thumb drive you plug in. And since the Monarch cannot take pictures or play movies or music, why are all these empty folders on the device and replicated to my thumb drives? With limited Braille display real estate, it’s important to not have loads of irrelevant clutter!

Also the “copy to” is kind of weird. I’m used to marking files and then choosing copy or paste. Visually of course, it would make sense to have a second column appear to the right of the column listing the source, so the destination would also be visible for moving and copying.

But with Braille it’s confusing. You choose Copy or move and your source disappears and you now must select a destination. This isn’t how it works on other Humanware Braille devices or the Windows or the Mac. This interface introduces an unnecessary learning curve. At least if it has to work this way, the top line of the Braille should read: “Select destination” instead of just showing folders, especially when the first ten lines are the android clutter stated above.

Also there should be an easy way to see the pathname. I know I can do the I-chord and see the folder name where my current focus is located. But if I were a newbie and the destination choices appeared, and I got interrupted, I might not know where I was in the file tree.

Also because the folders that I call Android clutter appear now on both my thumb drive and the Monarch, it’s easy to get confused and not be sure whether the thumb drive’s root folder or the Monarch’s root folder is being displayed.

If I open a BRF file on my thumb drive, it is pulled in to a program, but it was at first unclear whether the app I’m seeing is Victor Editor or KeyBRF. After some practice, I realized it was always KeyBRF in read-only mode, but the user guide should have details about each file type and what the default app that loads it is. This is another good reason to have the equivalent of a title bar, for example the first line of the I-Chord Info could show the name of the app.

Also, if I’m browsing through my drives, opening files, looking at them, going back to the file manager and repeating this, the Monarch freezes, presumably out of resources. More automatic task management would aleviate this problem. I know it’s typical of Android to freeze if too many apps are open but more intelegent task management as like on iOS would be useful here as often folks might be browsing through files and opening more than one, for example, when preparing a research paper.

KeyDrive, however is wonderful and gave me no problems. My organization hasn’t allowed KeyDrive to access my OneDrive files yet, but their I.T. has to fix this. Meanwhile I easily opened Google drive for two profiles as well as my personal One-Drive folder And I can easily work with those files using the Internet browser for HTML, the Word files with KeyWord and the Braille with KeyBRF. I had no problems either storing files in cloud storage, moving files off the Monarch to back them up there.

Lastly, other Humanware Braille devices have a back button at the end of a directory listing. You can press Back of course on the Monarch but this could be handy for someone just learning to work with the file manager.

1 Like
2

Thank you Deborah for these excellent observations and suggestions. We will direct your feedback to the Monarch development team for consideration. I also find the “Android Clutter” distracting on a USB drive.

3

You stated all of the thoughts I have had very well. It gets confusing knowing if you are in the flash or regular storage because it copies all of the “clutter” file folders.

4

The real estate on the Braille display is limited which is another reason to make file navigation clear. If I were designing the interface, I would have a link for up, to go to the previous level in the file tree hierarchy, and next to it the full path of the file folder now on display.

I would then show the files in the current folder, and of course any sub-folders. If a user pressed space with O for options, they’d be able to sort the files as you can with Windows or Mac, they’d be able to hide the Android folders, and they’d be able to decide if folders should be listed first or last. Sorting could be done by chronology, in ascending or descending order, or alphabetically.

Copy, cut and paste would work just as they do on the Brailliant, eReader, Mantis and Chameleon. It’s the same as on Windows or Mac, Mark a group of files and/or folders, hit copy or cut, navigate elsewhere and hit paste. The chord-A for “perform current action” adds unnecessary confusion.

I was wrong about playing music. Though it doesn’t seem you can play an Mp3, or pull up many file formats from the file manager, you can play an Mp3 or Mp4 from Ecosia. I’m not sure why the file manager doesn’t call up the app that handles a file when you select it because for Braille it does call up the Braille editor but not Victor Reader for the file types it supports.
It also does something weird with HTML. If I select an HTML file I get the choice of opening it with the HTML viewer or Ecosia. I don’t understand the difference and anyway, the HTML viewer is not part of the All Apps.

I do love KeyDrive though. Works perfectly as documented and it’s fast.