Related
Before anyone mentions it, I am aware TCPMP is the preferred media player for a lot of folks. I am not a big fan, as it requires me to spend a lot more time converting Playlists and MP3 files (so I can trim down my home preference for 256kbps MP3 -> something smaller for on-the-go)
And... I am supposed to get these features out of the box with what I have already paid for and installed, however, I have been fighting with Windows Media Player syncing for 3 nights now.
I think the gist is that the sync is taking forever and keeps losing a connection part of the way into the sync. I used to have this happen with XP under several different permutations of Active sync and WMP but figured WM6 and Vista would have corrected this issue.
So it has not, and to try and get things moving, I thought why don't I just copy over my files from my old flash cards (since they were already converted to 160kbps wma). Still doesn't help as even though the song is on the flash card WMP still goes through the conversion step before checking to see if the song is already on the device. So I am stuck wating for over 700 songs to be "reconverted".
In addition, the few songs I mistakenly purchased via WMP in the pre Urge days pops up a rights prompt on my mobile device asking if I want to download the license. Clicking yes brings me to a web page that shows a button to validate "I already own this song" that can not be clicked!!!!
I mapped some buttons in WMP Mobile, and now when I try to navigate to the start menu with the buttons, the dPad up and down let me walk the menu items, but clicking the center button does nothing, as WMP will not transfer control of this button to the OS.
And, as if this isn't enough already, in the new WM6 version, you still can not navigate the library tree using the dpad, you must use the stylis, how funnoying!!!
Shouldn't MS be able to get this right??? How many iterations of both the PC and WM versions of this software have they made and I still can not do something so simple as to select a list of playlist to be synced and have it ork!!!!! It's no wonder Apple is kicking their butt. I am not a big fan of iTunes/iPods, but at least they work!!!
Is this just par for the course? Shouldn't we expect these programs to work out of the box as advertised?
jgermuga said:
Could Windows Media Player get any worse???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In a word, yes, it could.
Don't know if it will though. How was this program advertized to work out of the box? I have read nothing about that.
Use Window Mobile Device Center instead to transfer your files. You mention something or other about playlists but I can't figure out what you mean or how you want it to work, but I hope you find an app that can do all that for you, to replace WMP.
The phone works great for me. Just think outside the box a little and stop relying on WMP to do so much work for you if you don't like the way it does it. Apple has a way of making products that have a WOW effect, but which will show severe limitations after the initial thrill wears off. TyTN II is much better in ways of customization, flexibility and features if you take the time to tweak and adjust stuff.
Dunno about playlists, but I just drag and drop mp3s over to the sd card using a card reader. No activesync file size issues, converting issues, ect. Heck, AT&T says the tilt can handle up to a 32 gig sd card, so why shrink them?
jgermuga said:
Before anyone mentions it, I am aware TCPMP is the preferred media player for a lot of folks. I am not a big fan, as it requires me to spend a lot more time converting Playlists and MP3 files (so I can trim down my home preference for 256kbps MP3 -> something smaller for on-the-go)
And... I am supposed to get these features out of the box with what I have already paid for and installed, however, I have been fighting with Windows Media Player syncing for 3 nights now.
I think the gist is that the sync is taking forever and keeps losing a connection part of the way into the sync. I used to have this happen with XP under several different permutations of Active sync and WMP but figured WM6 and Vista would have corrected this issue.
So it has not, and to try and get things moving, I thought why don't I just copy over my files from my old flash cards (since they were already converted to 160kbps wma). Still doesn't help as even though the song is on the flash card WMP still goes through the conversion step before checking to see if the song is already on the device. So I am stuck wating for over 700 songs to be "reconverted".
In addition, the few songs I mistakenly purchased via WMP in the pre Urge days pops up a rights prompt on my mobile device asking if I want to download the license. Clicking yes brings me to a web page that shows a button to validate "I already own this song" that can not be clicked!!!!
I mapped some buttons in WMP Mobile, and now when I try to navigate to the start menu with the buttons, the dPad up and down let me walk the menu items, but clicking the center button does nothing, as WMP will not transfer control of this button to the OS.
And, as if this isn't enough already, in the new WM6 version, you still can not navigate the library tree using the dpad, you must use the stylis, how funnoying!!!
Shouldn't MS be able to get this right??? How many iterations of both the PC and WM versions of this software have they made and I still can not do something so simple as to select a list of playlist to be synced and have it ork!!!!! It's no wonder Apple is kicking their butt. I am not a big fan of iTunes/iPods, but at least they work!!!
Is this just par for the course? Shouldn't we expect these programs to work out of the box as advertised?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're absolutely right, WMP mobile sucks in every which way. Don't let the purists tell you otherwise and if they do, suggest they try playing the same media file with HTC audio Player and compare the memory usage between them! WMP is on its Nth iteration, its part of Windows Mobile core applications and it still bites, how could this possibly be? I guess it's right up there with Microsoft's battery draining implementation of RIM/Blackberry push email.
borealcool said:
You're absolutely right, WMP mobile sucks in every which way. Don't let the purists tell you otherwise and if they do, suggest they try playing the same media file with HTC audio Player and compare the memory usage between them! WMP is on its Nth iteration, its part of Windows Mobile core applications and it still bites, how could this possibly be? I guess it's right up there with Microsoft's battery draining implementation of RIM/Blackberry push email.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't go pointing fingers at push e-mail for battery drain. I would look at for ISA server/NAT/Firewall for the battery issue. You most likely have the HTTP(s) timeout set too low. It is set too low by default on all of these solutions. So you have to manually change it. That WILL dramatically lower the battery consumption of push e-mail.
Here is some more information; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/905013
activesync battery timeout direct push active sync exchange isa firewall
lewcamino said:
Don't go pointing fingers at push e-mail for battery drain. I would look at for ISA server/NAT/Firewall for the battery issue. You most likely have the HTTP(s) timeout set too low. It is set too low by default on all of these solutions. So you have to manually change it. That WILL dramatically lower the battery consumption of push e-mail.
Here is some more information; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/905013
activesync battery timeout direct push active sync exchange isa firewall
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yay, registry tweaks for understaffed , overworked and underpaid IT departments. Here is some light reading for you as well: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=5915
The part where he says Microsoft's pings cost you 12 Mb a month and where RIM solutions get you 12 days of battery life is particularly interesting
Jim_R said:
Dunno about playlists, but I just drag and drop mp3s over to the sd card using a card reader. No activesync file size issues, converting issues, ect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what I do. The easiest way.
Jim_R said:
Heck, AT&T says the tilt can handle up to a 32 gig sd card, so why shrink them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Holy crap! Are they serious, or is that market speak for "about 8 gig really"?
Yes, WMP sucks. It doesn't save my playlists, bugs trying to do so and often loses playlists due to common error and requires me a few minutes to fix and a few hours to recover.
However TCPMP stops playback when I close the screen and I hate it just for that.
Mr.Clark said:
Holy crap! Are they serious, or is that market speak for "about 8 gig really"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What this means is that the Kaiser/Tilt is compatible with the SDHC format. The biggest capacity the SDHC format will ever be will be 32gb, however, the biggest one that even exists right now is 8 gb, and the biggest one that you can actually buy is 6 gb. Don't expect a 32 gb micro sd card anytime in the near future.
By the time micro sd cards reach 32 gb, I'm guessing the SDHC protocol will be old news anyway.
borealcool said:
Yay, registry tweaks for understaffed , overworked and underpaid IT departments. Here is some light reading for you as well: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=5915
The part where he says Microsoft's pings cost you 12 Mb a month and where RIM solutions get you 12 days of battery life is particularly interesting
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not a registry tweak. In this case it is a simple setting in ISA. There are registry tweaks as well, but most are covered in updates.
12 Mb is okay with me, our data is unlimited. So it is much cheaper then BB.
Later, Lew
Hi,
Anyone know if there is an app that lets me synchronize files or folders between my PC and the memory card on my Tilt?
I want to be able to sync when I am away from home, over the Internet.
I know there are a few apps that do this while the phone is connected to the PC, like Easy Sync.
Hamachi mobile has been working for me to access my home computer - but haven't set up any automatic syncing. I guess it depends on how automatic you need it versus being able to browse to the computer and copy what you need.
It does require Hamachi to be installed on the home computer as well.
Came across this a while ago:
Folder Share
It's not something I need, so never could be bothered to set it up. Might be what your after though?
ACTUALLY scratch this plan. I just had a further look over the site, and realised its for PC's, not PDA's. That was the reason I never bothered.
Good hunting!
There is a service called Soonr, that doesn't really Sync the files persay, but you can access files on your PC from your phone. As I recall Orb does a similar thing.
It's funny, actually I use FolderShare on my work/home PCs and it works great to keep folders in sync. I really just want to find something similar that works on a PDA/phone.
I also have Orb and it works great, but I want to be able to keep Word files and such in sync so I don't always have to make an Internet connection whenever I want to open the files. I'd also like to be able to keep mp3s in sync so that I don't have to stream to listen to them.
I did a lot of Google searching and the closest thing I can find is Nokia's Intellisync which seems to have this Internet-synching capability, but it seems like a big business implementation. I can't believe there isn't a simple solution for this.
Love Windows Phone 7, don't really love the hardware quality of the HD7. There are a few software issue that I am hoping are user fixable and not something I have to wait for an update to address.
1. Search button behavior in Internet Explorer - it irritates me immensely that when you hit the search button on the HD7, it brings up the Google desktop website. Similarly if you enter text in the address bar it searches Google, not Bing. If I wanted to use Google, I'd have kept my Android device. Is there a way to change this yet, and set the T-Mobile USA HD7 to default to the Bing app and not the Google website? Its especially annoying because the results bring you to mobile formatted pages.
2. This is more of a complaint than a fixable issue until copy and paste comes, but I have noticed that the text type recognition doesn't work all the time. In some places if I click an address it goes to Bing Maps but other times it does nothing, it looks like it highlights the word I touch. I haven't been able to find any pattern in which sites work and which don't, but its frustrating.
3. Sometimes when I get a text message the notification sound plays all choppy. It does seem to happen only where service is bad. Is there a fix for this?
4. Office and Skydrive. Maybe I am just retarded but I feel like there should be a way to access my Office files online, specifically through SkyDrive since I can save to it from Office on the computer. Do I have to have a Sharepoint server to do this? Can I really not access my SkyDrive files?
If I remember more I will post.
Also, is there an ETA for Flash?
I have been playing with the skydrive and I added a few files to it to try and see if I could open them on the HD7. The thing is I can open them but have yet to figure out how to open them with Word on the HD7 so that I can edit them and save them back to the skydrive(copy & paste would be nice...meh...soon I hope). But I opened IE and logged into my Windows Live account and I can open anything I have saved on the skydrive, PDFs, word files, excel sheets, ppt presentation, pictures, etc. Now the only issue is editing those files, I haven't tried sending files Word, Excel, etc. to the skydrive and trying to open them on my PC. Will update later with results of further tinkering.
My issues with HD7
Like many people I love this phone but coming from Windows Mobile 6.5 and donw (isn't that weird to say), this phone is really lacking.
1) The Zune software is crap for lack of a better word. No Smart DJ; No Artist photos; no random track play etc. These are not deal breakers but if you came from the Zune HD like me then you'll feel let down.
2) Font Size. It might just be me, but not being able to set a minimal font size is ridiculous. I use the word ridiculous because even my first pocket Pc phone edition in 2001 allowed font resize.
3) No ability to sync my desktop mobile favs. Yes! I know of the work around but wasn't the point of the new OS to avoid all that crap.
4) I want to be able to sync with my local address book. This whole facebook and windows live thing . . . .Look at it this way, if your contacts are based through FB then if one of those contacts cancels their FB acct then you automatically loose all that data. Of course this is not a MS thing.
4) With my HD2 and HTC Sense, I was used to seeing ALL my FB contact photos. Again not an MS thing but . . . .
5) This is really more of a gripe than anything but the battery icon doesn't tell much.How come I can't see exactly how much juice I have left.
6) Unified Inbox, flash, cut and paste. These are all things MS was kind enough to make us aware off so they get a pass on those.
Where is the File Explorer?
c0wb0ycliche said:
Love Windows Phone 7, don't really love the hardware quality of the HD7. There are a few software issue that I am hoping are user fixable and not something I have to wait for an update to address.
1. Search button behavior in Internet Explorer - it irritates me immensely that when you hit the search button on the HD7, it brings up the Google desktop website. Similarly if you enter text in the address bar it searches Google, not Bing. If I wanted to use Google, I'd have kept my Android device. Is there a way to change this yet, and set the T-Mobile USA HD7 to default to the Bing app and not the Google website? Its especially annoying because the results bring you to mobile formatted pages.
2. This is more of a complaint than a fixable issue until copy and paste comes, but I have noticed that the text type recognition doesn't work all the time. In some places if I click an address it goes to Bing Maps but other times it does nothing, it looks like it highlights the word I touch. I haven't been able to find any pattern in which sites work and which don't, but its frustrating.
3. Sometimes when I get a text message the notification sound plays all choppy. It does seem to happen only where service is bad. Is there a fix for this?
4. Office and Skydrive. Maybe I am just retarded but I feel like there should be a way to access my Office files online, specifically through SkyDrive since I can save to it from Office on the computer. Do I have to have a Sharepoint server to do this? Can I really not access my SkyDrive files?
If I remember more I will post.
Also, is there an ETA for Flash?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Apparently carriers can change the search engine within Internet Explorer, and we can't do anything about it. Once someone gets access to editing the registry, maybe we will be able to change that. BUT I do have some help for you: Search something in Google, and then scroll down to the bottom, find the "Settings" link. Then you can change it to NOT format sites for mobile phones. That should make the experience better!
2. Addresses have to be in a certain format: #### N Street Rd, Zip Code. Like this address, 6362 N Calle Campeche, 85750. If it doesn't have the zip code after the street, it sadly doesn't recognize it. Hopefully they fix that, it's a great feature otherwise.
3. Idk, never had that happen.
4. You can access your Skydrive files and download them to your phone by going to the SkyDrive website (they have a mobile version), but you can't upload any documents from your phone or upload the changes you make in a doc you download. It has been rumored that SkyDrive integration will be implemented at some point.
alabij said:
My issues with HD7
Like many people I love this phone but coming from Windows Mobile 6.5 and donw (isn't that weird to say), this phone is really lacking.
1) The Zune software is crap for lack of a better word. No Smart DJ; No Artist photos; no random track play etc. These are not deal breakers but if you came from the Zune HD like me then you'll feel let down.
2) Font Size. It might just be me, but not being able to set a minimal font size is ridiculous. I use the word ridiculous because even my first pocket Pc phone edition in 2001 allowed font resize.
3) No ability to sync my desktop mobile favs. Yes! I know of the work around but wasn't the point of the new OS to avoid all that crap.
4) I want to be able to sync with my local address book. This whole facebook and windows live thing . . . .Look at it this way, if your contacts are based through FB then if one of those contacts cancels their FB acct then you automatically loose all that data. Of course this is not a MS thing.
4) With my HD2 and HTC Sense, I was used to seeing ALL my FB contact photos. Again not an MS thing but . . . .
5) This is really more of a gripe than anything but the battery icon doesn't tell much.How come I can't see exactly how much juice I have left.
6) Unified Inbox, flash, cut and paste. These are all things MS was kind enough to make us aware off so they get a pass on those.
Where is the File Explorer?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Yeah, I miss SmartDJ too. I never looked at an artist's pictures however. Their picture does load as a background image, but I know that's not what you're referring to. By random track playing, you mean Shuffle? In the now playing screen, tap on the album art, and then click the shuffle icon.
2. Font size depends on the user of course. I'm good with it as it is, but they should have made an option to change it. Maybe a future update.
3. Eh yeah. I don't use favorites honestly
4. You mean how the HTC Album app in WinMo could access all of your friends online Facebook photo albums, right from their contact card? Yeah I loveeeed that in HTC Sense. I was really disappointed when my WP7 didn't have something like that.
4.2. Umm, if a friend cancels their Facebook account, you don't loose anything that you stored yourself. Just add a contact's info into your Windows Live contacts, it will never disappear.
5. Maybe someone will write a battery percentage app. Idk.
6. I personally can't wait for copy/paste!
7. Microsoft made it decetly clear months ago that there wouldn't be a file explorer.
Thanks for the tips, and I'm really hoping someone figures out how to change the search option. It's annoying when my bosses WP7 (HTC Surround) pulls up the bing app in IE, and mine goes to the Google site. You can remove all carrier and manufacture apps (1 step forward) but can't choose your default internet search while your carrier can (2 steps back.)
Hardware wise, the issues I have are these:
After a couple days, the back and battery color have some discoloration. I don't have particularly dirty or clammy hands, so I don't know why this is. It weirdly also doesn't look like where my fingers actually are, so maybe it's heat related. I've seen similar issues on the Touch Pro and the G2. I think it has something to do with the soft touch material.
There is also a gap between the two pieces of the battery cover. This I have seen on literally every unit I've touched. Mine, my boyfriends, the demo unit at T-Mobile, and the ones at Best Buy.
Likewise, if you press search a little hard, you see like a ripple in the bottom right hand corner. This also was on every device I played with, so it's a general thing.
These things, for me at least, aren't deal breakers, but they are annoying, especially compared to the absolutely astounding build quality of the HD2.
...
anyway.
All of this stuff aside, I must say, my actual general usage experience with the device (again, more WP7 than the HD7 specifically) has been honestly, wonderful.
I've found that in my experience,true to Microsoft's goal, everything just works, and works quickly. Coming from Android (recently, after the HD2 I just couldn't deal with WM6.5) and having had every phone in between (iPhone, Palm Pre, a crap ton of Android phones, even a Symbian phone) I must say that I have had the fewest problems, and most fluid experience of all, on WP7. General usage stuff like calls, texts, e-mail, web browsing, social networking etc. are all just super fast and efficient (with maybe the only exception being Facebook's annoying load time, but its not horribly necessary with the "what's new" section in People. Also, despite some issues (like it taking me a week to realize you can click on the song list under now playing) the media and gaming is hands down the best I've had on a phone.
Ugh, is the T-Mobile HD7 locked into Google?
I thought the whole idea of the Search button was to get quick access to the Bing Search Application. Is this so or is it only the search in IE?
Hoping they'll add a way to change that ASAP.
Jonno2343 said:
Ugh, is the T-Mobile HD7 locked into Google?
I thought the whole idea of the Search button was to get quick access to the Bing Search Application. Is this so or is it only the search in IE?
Hoping they'll add a way to change that ASAP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only in IE. Press Search from the start screen and it'll work like you expect (opening Bing)
Jonno2343 said:
Ugh, is the T-Mobile HD7 locked into Google?
I thought the whole idea of the Search button was to get quick access to the Bing Search Application. Is this so or is it only the search in IE?
Hoping they'll add a way to change that ASAP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The T-Mobile US variant of the HD7 works like this, in all places other than a) Internet Explorer or b) app that override the search button (like contacts) when you press the search key it bring up Bing. When in IE, it goes to google.com. When in an app with an override, it searches within that app.
c0wb0ycliche said:
The T-Mobile US variant of the HD7 works like this, in all places other than a) Internet Explorer or b) app that override the search button (like contacts) when you press the search key it bring up Bing. When in IE, it goes to google.com. When in an app with an override, it searches within that app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
About your part B... that's how the search button is supposed to work, Windows Phone was designed like that. The T-Mobile USA HD7 is only different than other phones in part A.
as a few more days have passed, I also noticed that sometimes the Marketplace will lock up. The phone doesn't, I can still go back to the start screen, use all other apps etc, but when I go into Marketplace again it says loading and then goes back into to start unless I restart the device. Not a big deal, not too common, but still a bug. I think its related to the small freezes while browsing apps when it's loading the icons.
To clarify, you can upload and save your changes to SkyDrive. Simply tap down at the application settings and select synchronize. That will sync any changes with SkyDrive.
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express
Edit: it just works with OneNote.
But I think if you download excel doc from SkyDrive and make changes it will sync with SkyDrive?
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express
c0wb0ycliche said:
as a few more days have passed, I also noticed that sometimes the Marketplace will lock up. The phone doesn't, I can still go back to the start screen, use all other apps etc, but when I go into Marketplace again it says loading and then goes back into to start unless I restart the device. Not a big deal, not too common, but still a bug. I think its related to the small freezes while browsing apps when it's loading the icons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, that's a problem with just about everyone that has an HTC phone. I'm not sure if it affects Samsung and LG too, but I wouldn't be surprised if it does too.
question about file transfering between a pc and hd7.
when i connect hd7 to my pc it doesn't appear as a storage device, as it does all modern devices with android.
i read about the way around, but it didn't work for me.
zune helps to transfer only a number of file types - like media files or pictures.
just one sample - i've installed freda reader, but can't put any epub-file to read! i can't even attach it to an email - well, i can attach, but can't save it on the phone - it says, that .epub is just not supported by the phone!
so, the question is: is there any chance to transfer any file from my pc to hd7, and, for example, to save any attached file on the phone?
you can email it, but it has to have the proper program to open it.
For freda, the best work around right now is to use caibre ebook library on your desktop, set it up as a server, then you can add them to freda.
If you search for freda to wp7, you should find step by step instructions.
Check this out:
http://www.turnipsoft.co.uk/freda/calibre-how-to.htm
Now I just realized HTC HD7 with the GREAT Windows Phone OS is SUCKS ! I'm facing the same problem too, NO FILE TRANSFERRING accept songs, photos & videos ! Is that all ?
I'm wondering why HTC came out with a phone like this with no mass storage support ? More worst than apple with itunes, at least I'm able to add/remove apps through itunes. With ANDROID, I can do almost EVERYTHING I want ! What about the mighty Zunes ? SUCKS !
Do you know why people want to migrate their HD2 Windows to Android ?...
---------- Post added at 11:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:02 AM ----------
Do you mean using email to attach files/data to do as file transfer ? What about I'm going transfer a gig or 4 gig ? Transferring a 4 gigabyte files over the internet ? Woo... I know you're kidding, right ?
Some more, do I have to know freda to force using my HD7 for file transferring ?
If I have to do some complicated steps to make my smartphone working, then how can I called my phone is a SMARTPHONE ? Because it is not smart at all !
Friend, I'm not criticizing or scolding what. I'm feeling that I'm being like an idiot holding a stupid phone that I can't do anything to it.
It's just a different way of thinking about storage, that's all. To improve security, and reduce the risk of a bad app trashing your phone, Microsoft adopted a model where pretty much everything operates in a 'sandboxed' mode. You are not meant to share data between apps on the phone (except using copy-paste ).
If you're coming to WP7 from Android, (or from WM6) that model is going to seem strange, but it doesn't make the phone unusable. You just need to get used to the idea that each app will have its own preferred cloud location(s) for keeping its data. So for media, it's Zune; for MS Office it's SkyDrive or SharePoint, etc.
And third-party apps can provide their own choice of locations (so for example, among the book-reader apps, Freda offers you SkyDrive or DropBox, Bookviser lets you chose between SkyDrive or a dedicated Bookviser cloud store ... ).
Now of course if you prefer to think of your phone as a mass-storage device, WP7 won't suit you, and you should use a different OS (or unlock your WP7 phone if you must).
Windows Phone Device Manager & TouchXperience. link.
Hi all, just a quick question regarding the functionality of Wp8 that I am fighting with, that I need to resolve or another WP phone is going back to the supplier [I did the same with WP7].
First off, apologies if there's an answer that I haven't managed to find.
I currently have an HTC HD2 running very nicely on WM6.5, however, it's been creaking a bit recently & I'd decided with a favourable review of WP8 that I read the other day suggesting that finally the device can be plugged into a PC & seen as a USB drive, that the time was right to move forwards.
Now that I have the Nokia Lumia 820 & WP8 however, I still don't think I can get it to do what I need it to do.
ALL I would like to do, is be able to copy text files from PC to WP8, & then display them on the phone with text wrap switched off.
Easy hey? Well if so, I haven't worked out how to do it yet!
I plug the phone into my PC, & an Explorer window fires up on the PC [XP] showing 'SD card' & 'Phone'. Drilling down one level on the latter gives Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos etc.
The only way I can get to see the Documents folder on my Phone appears to be via Office Mobile, under 'places' > phone. It appears to be very fussy about what it allows to be displayed there - I can see .PDF, .DOC, .XLS & .TXT files [but not .LOG. .ONE, .ZIP etc (which remain 'hidden')].
When I tap a .TXT file, I have no choice of how to open it, Office Mobile pounces & that's that. Having got this far, all I would now like to do is switch off text wrap [so that it'll view in a usable manner] because there doesn't appear to be such an option.
I have scoured the Store, & the best I've found is 'Text Reader', though this requires that I load it via email [upload a file to Hotmail or wherever with a .LOG (or similar) suffix & away you go, which it then downloads & stores in its own sandbox]. Ok, but faffy.
I believe that other progs might enable transfer via the cloud [Skydrive or whatever], but because of the nature of the data [& the fact that I don't want my data in anyone else's hands], this is out too.
I've spotted a couple of other quirks.
Office Mobile also does not allow you to display the folder hierarchy that may exist in Phone>Documents, just giving a flat filesystem, which makes finding a file in thousands, say, horrible. All I'd like to do is exactly duplicate the hierarchy that exists on the PC [& then I am always looking for things in the same place on either device].
I have also noticed that Office Mobile Word sometime hangs part way through a file. e.g. on loading a 1mb file, & searching for a text sequence I know to be on the last line, it hangs on a line part way through the file [say a 1/3 of the way in]. Not great, & I have the odd file that's c.10mb so I dread to think with that.
Words fail me, & once again I am hugely disappointed with MS. Please, please get the odd decision right & maybe WP will be at the top of the pile again as it was with [the sometimes awful, but very functional] WM.
I am hoping that someone will explain an easy way to do this, & that I can finally move forwards from WM6.5. Android concerns me re privacy & I don't like iPhones, so not much choice really! Stuck waiting for MS to provide basic functionality or [worse] a potential need for a future jailbreak to make the thing work properly!
Here's hoping. Many thanks for reading.
First of all, nobody who knew what the hell they were talking about said that WP8 displays as a USB drive (properly called USB Mass Storage). It's an MTP device, like most media players (or indeed WP7, though that had an extra layer of encryption around it). MTP doesn't display the actual filesystem; although the hierarchical display that it presents *may* mirror a real filesystem, it's under no obligation to do so.
The dearth of supported file types in WP7 was a real pain, but it could be fixed by tweaking the registry. In WP8 it's still a pain, but now third-party apps can (officially) register to handle file types. However, as you point out, there's no real way to browse the phone, and the Office hub only shows the filetypes it recognizes. We *might* be able to fix that, if we could get registry write permission, but that's not possible right now. With that said, I don't know if it would be possible for another app to register the (for example) .txt extension; the phone does offer the ability to choose what app opens a given file type.
For what it's worth, Bluetooth file transfer to the phone works fine, and the files will open in whatever app is registered to the file's extension. You can then save them into the app's storage (Documents, for Office apps). This may be a better way to transfer your data.
In WP8 you can build Apps that associate themselves with certain filetypes (identified by the ending). If your App is associated with a certain file type the App can also open files of that type from anywhere on the SD Card.
So for example if you put a *.log file onto the SD Card any App that is associated with the ".log" ending can read it (the Explorer functionality for the SD Card would have to be implemented by the App itself but it is supported). This does not work with the integrated storage though. With integrated storage you would still have to receive it via E-Mail, SkyDrive, etc.
Now for the caveats:
- Apps can't be dynamically associated with File Types. If you want to open "*.log" files the App developer has to associate his App with the filetype in it's manifest. If several Apps exist for a given filetype the user will be asked which one to use.
- There is a quite extensive list of file types that are reserved for the OS or built in Apps. Any file type that is reserved in that way can't be associated with third Party Apps. This contains Office documents (except PDF, TXT files and lots of media file types). The complete list can be seen here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj207065(v=vs.105).aspx
- Apps can only read from the SD Card but they can't Change data there.
Now as for your Problem: someone could build an App that supports e.g. Log-Files and you could use your Lumia 820 with an SD Card to pretty much work the way you intend to with those files. It's not really trivial though, given that 10 MB big plain Text-Files regularly lead to Trouble even on PC text Editors (the developer has to be smart on how to handle These "huge" files, so just some midnight hack job won't do).
What are your further requirements? Search pretty obviously. But what are all the filetypes you would need? Would you need editing capability?
Just trying to understand the compelete picture of your requirements. Perhaps you can tell us what kinds of files you use and for what purposes.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
@GoodDayToDie
Re 'seen as a USB drive' - That's me being careless with words, what I meant to say was the ability to local sync over a USB cable, & then access the copied files on the device. I didn't think that you could do this with WP7 [without frigs], & had high[er] hopes for WP8.
I might have a look at Bluetooth FT as a method for getting the [bulk] data over locally, as I won't be doing it via the cloud [email or Skydrive]. Thanks for the advice.
@StevieBallz
Thanks for the MSDN reference - Very interesting.
Ok, so the apps can potentially access the data on the SD card but not write to it - As an aside, I thought I read something the other day that said data on the SD card was limited to Pictures, Videos, Music etc, as a security measure. That's interesting too then, though anything I want to be 'secure' I'd keep in the internal storage anyway.
Re the comment re 'Trouble even on PC text Editors'. Yes, I tried way back on WM2003 to get a file displayer going, but immediately hit problems with [I think] a 32KB limit on the textbox display. I've just made do with WM6.5's Word displayer since, which offers basic functionality.I keep meaning to go back to the coding, but haven't managed it yet [I think Visual Basic was missing for a while with WP, if indeed it's there yet (I thought I'd read it was with VS2012?)].
Re my 'requirements'. Just to be able to search [large-ish] text files & have the o/p displayed in a manner that's readable [no word-wrapping]. I realise editing is a whole new ball game, so read-only would be good enough. Longer term, I'd like the ability to have many text files open at once - On the desktop I use "Programmer's File Editor", & something like that [if only as a viewer] I'd find invaluable on the smartphone/PDA. I also have many thousands of files on my desktop [PDF, DOC, RTF, HTM, TXT etc] & ideally I'd like access to those on the go as & when needed, via a hierarchical file system on the mobile device, with the structure exactly mirroring the PC's file system, so that I'd search for & find data in the same places regardless of which device I was using [Why thousands? Might be 100s+ actually, & these could be electricity bills, sales receipts, insurance documents - anything - the stuff of life really].
I'll continue with my testing of Office Mobile Word's displaying & searching of text files. I've found it patchy & not consistent so far, but am going to have to move from WM6.5 eventually [more's the pity], & don't really want the hassle of sending the device back again.
Many thanks for your advice so far.
Device returned, many thanks for your help. Maybe WP9 then?
5v17 said:
Device returned, many thanks for your help. Maybe WP9 then?
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Judging by the ideas picked up for review on dev user voice, situation may drastically improve with the next SDK update.