Android Question How to Get Android 9+ to allow user to choose an app To run a path&filename string?

[Joanna]

'everything is lowercase, no spaces. the file is there. I can load it manually
'B4A v11
'
'example:
'FN="/storage/emulated/0/download/barbie.txt"
'Dim I As Intent
'i.Initialize(i.ACTION_VIEW, FN)
'FN="content://" & FN
'i.SetType("text/plain")
'StartActivity(i)
'


Great!
Popup appears, Open.. or.. Use a different app...

I try many apps. Ex: X-plore
they all give me same error
Get error: unable to open file barbie.txt
No content provider: content:///storage/emulated/0/download/barbie.txt

Honestly, I dont care about mime types. Let the user decide.

I also tried changing all that to a jpg file and image/* and get same error msgs.

I thought this was going to be easy, but I was wrong.

any simple suggestions?
-JoAnna

 

[Erel]

You cannot directly access files from the secondary storage.

You can access those files with ContentChooser or ExternalStorage.
You can share your app files with other apps using FileProvider.

 

[Joanna]

Hmm. So I need to save barbie.txt to my MicroSD card /01234-56789/download/barbie.txt
and then do StartActivity(i) to that path?
I thought " Starting from Android 4.4 it is no longer possible to directly access external storages "
which made Sd card almost useless? (In cases like this)
From what I know, ContentChooser will not bring up the file you want the user to open. User has to go searching for file/path?
-JoAnna

 

[Joanna]

is there anywhere on the entire Android device that I can put 'barbie.txt' so it can be 'directly' accessed by any app?
without using content chooser or file provider
-JoAnna

 

[Joanna]

Erel, I read your reply wrong. I got all confused. Forgive me.

Let me correct myself. My problem is the Startactivity(i).

'below works in Android 7, 9, 11 in any of my programs. This is good for me.
'EditText2.Text=File.ReadString("/storage/emulated/0/download/","barbie.txt")

it is the StartActivity that I can't get to work.

I can't have our 70 year old mom trying to use content chooser/etc to find folders/files/etc.
that's just too much for her. I want to do all the work for her.

Click a button and Android loads up her default TEXT viewer or .pdf viewer.. whatever.

she has Android v11

-JoAnna

 

[Erel]

You made 4 posts but haven't explained what you are trying to do. I guess that you are using the sd card to transfer file to the phone, right?

You can use ExternalStorage. Once the folder is selected, your app will be able to access it in the future.

 

[agraham]

If it's Android 11, just for your Mom and not in the Play Store then you can use
Manage External Storage - access internal external storage >= SDK 30 | B4X Programming Forum
This give you access to most of the storage, not the SD card, except the /Android sub folders. See post #5 in the link above.

 

[Joanna]

'example:
'FN="/storage/emulated/0/download/barbie.txt"
'Dim I As Intent
'i.Initialize(i.ACTION_VIEW, FN)
'FN="content://" & FN
'i.SetType("text/plain")
'StartActivity(i)

Thank you for your help guys.
I had to give up on this. Just cant get it to work.
Maybe I need to convert a simple string(FN) to a URI in order for the above example to work?
I went with adding another panel, with basically my own text viewer.

My brother(Scottie) is also having trouble accessing Android's file system.
But he is trying to read/write to android/data folders. Don't think he's gonna do it.
Google has ruined it.

Anyways, This girl has a hair salon appointment to get to.

Thanks again,
JoAnna