TiddlyDesktopRS on Android Play Store - Test phase

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#101

Linux v0.6.10
Android 0.0.62

Both Android and Desktop have the Blue connect button that doesn’t seem to do anything. Maybe because auto-connect is on? So I turn off auto-connect, but the Blue connect button still doesn’t do anything.

I can’t make a functional connection between Android and the Desktop. It did offer me a link on one Android device, but there was no functional connection between the files. It did not offer any link on a second Android device (tablet), making me think that maybe it can’t handle more than two connections?

The two Android devices are able to communicate and share changes with each other, but neither can communicate changes with the desktop.

1 Like
#102

sounds like a bug when sending two or more wiki “manifests” at a time. I’m investigating.

could you make sure that A) you don’t have anything in ~/.local/share/com.burningtreec.tiddlydesktop-rs (delete it, you have a portable install and it shouldn’t be used) and B) you’re using a fresh install of the Android app, not just deleting cache and wiping data?

That makes sure that you and me are testing with the same states.
The “Connect buttons not doing anything” might be an issue that comes from having stale files that haven’t been cleaned up. They can only be in the above mentioned folder if you’re using a portable install but something is off.

#103

Deleted the ~/.local… and re-installed (uninstall followed by install) on Android (think it’s the 4th time today!).

Android offered me the chance to link, which I immediately accepted … even though I hadn’t specified a room for the document yet. Then I specified a room. But, they are not sharing.

The connect button still doesn’t do anything on Android. It does turn red and say “Disconnect” now on the Desktop.

When we’re setting up the Rooms, what is the difference between “Create room” and “Join room” ? Like if you Join a room that is offline, aren’t you just creating a room? Usually I’m picking “Join”.

Thanks!

#104

Android offered you the chance to link…
That means you shared the document on your PC with a room, right?
It’s intended behavior in that case to show you the wiki for linking with an un-synced wiki.
You then enable Sync and add it to the Room and it should start syncing.

I prefer if you get used to creating a room on one device and joining it on the other.
That is because over LAN-sync currently yes there’s no big different between creating or joining, but for Relay-sync the Room MUST be created by someone first so that others can join.

I will make this more intuitive in the future.

#105

Right.

It must have been unsynched at the moment, since it offered it. What was noteworthy was that the document it was linking to hadn’t been assigned a room yet.

Anyway, both target and source say “Sync” and both have the same Room set. But they’re not transferring data. Meanwhile, the two androids connect and share almost instantly.

So it seems there is some inconsistency between Android and Desktop.

Ok. I’m going to be out of here for a few hours.

#106

Hi Simon

More feedback - sounds negative but don’t take it the wrong way. Still enthusiastic and positive here. However you are too prolific!

imo you and Claude need to slow down, consolidate and simplify the model, label descriptively and work out how to work around the playstore bottleneck.

You need to give some thought to your release schedule. Even Google Play Store can’t keep up and their bottleneck makes it difficult to be confident it’s worth testing a particular version. Another one appears too quickly after.

Can you make it clearer whether the updates are interdependent? i.e Does an Android app update reconcile issues in a particular desktop version or are they totally independent and don’t need testing as pairs?

imo now is a good time to rationalise the Ui and ‘labelling’. There are too many hoops to jump through to test it at the moment and it’s not clear enough what does what, leading to quite a bit of uncertainty in the testing process. Consolidated labelling would also make it easier to describe test experiences/issues. KISS?

This thread is too long to go looking for solutions, maybe after a bit of Ui restructuring, user instructions would be easier to produce?

Still a great app though! Very difficult to test - see below. Thanks for the perseverance!

My testing experience Check github for update

If yes;

Delete previous folder containing portable extracted from latest tar.gz

Delete configs in .local

Download and extract latest portable

I’m using LAN only

No wikis opened on new install

Working desktop test wiki kept in a desktop folder, seperate to TD-RS folder.

Working/matching Android test wiki kept in a folder under downloads.

Open Desktop dashboard

SYNC section

labels in very light colour font - look greyed out and therefore not ‘active’, eg not obvious you can give your device a name.

No rooms configured. Create a new room or join an existing one buttons exist.

Sign in - no info on what I’m signing in to or why I need to.

Relay server url is visible with a tick - no info but implies I’m connected to it (I’m not).

Scroll up top

Click open wiki file
Navigate to desktop folder where wiki lives, select wiki previously used with earlier versions - appears on wikiname list, no room or sync buttons visible. Open now?

go back to ‘join room’ button
Click join
font looks greyed out - what am I supposed to do? Where can I get info about existing rooms from other devices?

Go to phone, which I had updated before starting laptop set up, it tells me there is a new version. I try and update - Google hasn’t updated yet, can’t download it from play store.

Does unavailable version contain fixes relevant to testing? Better wait for Google?

Meanwhile portable desktop gets an update! Are the desktop and Android releases in sync with each other? Is there any point testing this desktop if a new one is on the way?

Return to current Android version - get previously created Room name/code/password info.

Back to desktop dashboard - Join room - enter info (incidentally the input fields are in different order on android and desktop - causing input of wrong info - please make consistent)

Nothing happens in sync area - am I connected? The indicator is tiny, and I’m colour blind. It’s LAN only as far as I can tell but server url still says relay? Click ‘Connect’?

Anyway scroll up to wikiname on dashboard.

Room and Sync buttons have appeared there. I choose my room name and the top right globe appears in the opened wiki telling me connected peers, I click on it and it gives phone name. The globe sits beside the hide sidebar chevrons - (they’re not related).

My phone is already in the room. Sync button ticked. Wiki open.
My laptop is now in the room. Sync button unticked. Wiki open.

Does this mean changes to phone wiki will sync to laptop wiki? No - not on my test. Click sync button on desktop - both phone and desktop are now marked sync beside wiki name. Both are in the same room. Both on same LAN. No syncing.

By the time I’ve done all this I see a new release is available on Github and the phone says a (newer?) update is available - Google play store however is still not able to keep up. Update not available. I wonder is it worth continuing with this test?

Currently the top right globe button says they are connected or at least seeing each other. No sync though.

Close everything on both devices.

Reopen - globe comes up on phone, no globe on desktop. No sync.

New release available - wonder if they contain fixes? Start again - redownload needed.

#107

I think right now Android gets bumped every time the main desktop is updated. It might be better if Android only gets bumped, or at least the indicator gets bumped, when Android has actually changed.

What indicator is that? There’s a peer indicator. It is small. It changes from gray to blue. When it is blue it says “peers” next to it.

It would really help to be able to save/import settings. It is the slow, error prone part of the process.

#108

Hi @Watt

Yes there were many changes server side and how rooms get created. That caused Android and Desktop to be out of sync.

My apologies for the testing trouble.

Now they are in sync and sync works. Make sure that both wikis are in the same room, synced and linked. Linked to the room and between each other.

1 Like
#109

0.0.66
0.6.14

Complete Android uninstall/re-install. New desktop install, removing .local directory.

Outcomes:

  • Neither Android nor Desktop offer the other the chance to link. (the Sync button is active on the documents on both platforms)
  • Click on “Connect”, but it doesn’t turn red or indicate a connection. Same behaviour on both platforms. Does it show “Disconnect” only when using Relay?
  • The same document on either platform shows a peer symbol, indicating that it knows about the other device – but the documents don’t share changes

HTH

#110

Same here! Not syncing but globe only on phone for me. Not seeing anything under ‘Available from Peers’ either. Just for clarification, the ‘Connect’ button refers only to relay server? If I want to stay only LAN do I need to do something differently?

#111

dot
dot766×800 116 KB

The dot beside ‘connect’. Doesn’t seem to do anything, too small/uninformative? Connect button = connect to relay, LAN or room?

#112

I guess the “Connect” must only work with the relay.

Here’s what I see when I turn on the relay:

image
image608×795 44.7 KB

The worrisome thing is – where did all those rooms come from? I’ve only set up “Doorway”. I have a max of 3 devices running. There are 4 rooms. Maybe these are leftovers on the server from other sessions?

Anyway, the little indicator dot in this picture is light blue and has the phrase “0 peers”.

“disconnect”, “Remove”, and “Delete from server” are red.

After registering the room on both platforms, and making sure my linkable files are in the same room, it’s offering me a chance to link. I link … and they share!

So, maybe right now you have to run the relay in order to connect two devices on the same local network? Maybe something broke with the local LAN share?

#113

You’ve got ghost rooms! No I don’t see any of those red buttons, I have avoided signing in for relay but not sure if you have to. I thought LAN worked without it - we’ll find out soon I expect.

Meanwhile I thought creating a new wiki via ‘create new wiki’ button on dashboard and starting afresh might be the way to go, but I’m getting this;

wikifailandroid
wikifailandroid1080×2310 161 KB

No wiki created. It mentions termux which is installed if that’s relevant Simon.

#114

I just created a new wiki on Android without problem. Which “edition” or type of Wiki did you create?

Is termux actually running?

#115

An empty edition. Nothing got created though, it failed with that message. Termux is not running. Maybe try an uninstall, reinstall tomorrow rather than another update. No big rush at all, only testing. Thanks!

#116

Do you have anything like a firewall, like netguard, on your system? To my amateur eye, it looks like TDrs/A was trying use SSL, probably to fetch the template, and then it failed. Which suggests that something was messing up the SSL.

I thought I would install Termux to see if it changed how TDrs/A worked, but then found I had already installed Termux! Do you know if you got your Termux from the Playstore or somewhere else?

#117

Uninstalled Termux and retried - it cured the ‘create new wiki’ failure. Still can’t get them to connect over LAN though. Will try another day! Thanks.

#118

Is this a requisite?

#119

No. Just the opposite. Was trying to determine if termux was interfering with TDrs/A. In Wat’s case … it might be. But Termux wasn’t a problem for me when I tried to create a wiki. So there is a question mark here about how and if these two programs interact.

#120

Hi Simon

tiddlydesktop-rs-0.6.15-linux-x86_64.tar.gz on Linux Mint
TD-RS/A 66 Android 10

Not able to sync yet - here’s the steps taken, hope it helps. No rush, positive vibes, weekend!

I’m fuzzy on the wiki creation point. Am I missing something? Am I correct in creating a wiki independently on each device and then expecting them to talk to each other because they are syncing and are in the same room? Or are we supposed to connect, open/create a wiki on just one device and then ‘get wiki from peer’? Nothing shows under ‘Available from Peers.’

Test Sequence

Desktop
Delete previous desktop version
Delete .local/share/burningtree…

Download/unpack new linux.tar.gz (portable but unpacked to hard drive)
Go to td-rs bin - click on tiddlydesktop-rs
Dashboard opens
No wikis listed.

Options get confusing for me here, should I:
Open existing wiki stored in desktop directory
or
Click ‘create wiki file’?

Do both.

2 wiki filenames appear in list. No room or sync buttons beside them yet. No rooms created.

Scroll down to SYNC
Not signed in
No rooms created yet on phone or desktop
Create room
Give it a name, code and password prefilled - save
Autoconnect is prechecked
Nothing under ‘Available from Peers’ yet

Scroll up to wikilist. Sync and Room buttons have appeared.
Choose room
click sync

Go to phone
Got latest from Google Play
Open dashboard - No wikis yet
Scroll to SYNC
Not signed in
No rooms created yet on phone
Click Join Room
Copy Room details from desktop -save
Room joined successfully - 1 peer blue indicator - looks good
Autoconnect is prechecked
Nothing under ‘Available from Peers’ yet
Scroll up to wikilist.

Options get confusing for me here, should I:

Open existing wiki stored in directory under 'downloads’
or
Click ‘create wiki file’?

Do both.
Click ‘create wiki file’
select directory - save wiki with a name (is name important?)
Android comes up immediately with same directory and a ‘Use this folder’ button.
Click it. Notification pops up ‘Allow tiddlydesktop-rs to access files in directory?’ - Click allow. (Permissions)
Goes back to ‘Edition list’ - I choose ‘Empty’.
Wiki is created and opens. It has globe icon in top right with laptop id. So far so good!

Go back to phone dashboard

Sync and Room buttons have appeared beside wikiname
select previously joined room
click sync

Go back to desktop - wiki is open and is in same room and has globe icon with phone id.

At this point I think they should be syncing
Create a tiddler on desktop wiki - save.
No sync - not changing anything on phone, no conflict resolve message. Same from phone to desktop.

Nothing appears as being available from peers on either device, but the globe icon says they see each other.

Opening a pre-existing wiki on both devices, putting them in the same room and syncing produces the same result except no globe icon on desktop version. Phone wiki has globe with correct id for desktop connected. The pre-existing wiki is in an independent folder on laptop. On the phone it’s in the same folder under ‘downloads’