Debugging the new home page

[Nostang3]

I'm not sure what triggers it, but occasional my camera folder(which happens to be the first folder alphabetically) will be pinned to the top. If I go into folder options it will show pin to top checked. If I uncheck it, it doesn't lose it's position. I have to swipe PG from recents menu to get things to reset.

[puregallery]

Camera album is pinned to top by default. It is the default behavior for some gallery apps, which I adopted. Also, I have the new home page version ready....can you help me test it? I can send you a debug build, which you can have along with the play store version.

[Nostang3]

It just doesn't seem consistent. I get that it should be at the top of a non pinned album view for easy access. But it is sometimes at the top before the pins and other times after the pinned. My current experience with PG is the the Pinned albums take priority over the camera folder.

Yeah, sure. I'm down for testing.

[puregallery]

The intention was to have the camera album have precedence over any other pinned album...I guess the sorting is a bit broken for that case. I will look into that.

here is a link to the build... https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HhkcpQv9wN1RhU1cH_dEIAgNyu9V4bBf

Few options in the toolbar are still missing though...

[puregallery]

Hey...I identified a few issues and am working on fixing them... Just test out the new design and let me know how you feel. Btw...you can now copy/move items from hybrid albums(timeline, tags, locations etc)

[Nostang3]

I like it. The Albums screen might take a little to get used to but I like it's quick access to the files. One thing I did notice is that it doesn't remember your view selection when you close out of PG. So if I'm on album and exit and come back it defaults to Timeline.

I also just noticed the eager loading option in the settings. Makes swiping through photos so much more pleasant as they are already rendered.

Another issue is that if you click the title of the album in Album view it won't open the album You have to click a little below it or to the empty area to the side to be able to open it. Took me a few to get it to work as I kept clicking on the title.

[puregallery]

The Albums screen might take a little to get used to but I like it's quick access to the files

This has been there since the beginning...it is the nested view in the albums screen....you can select it from the three dot menu

I did notice is that it doesn't remember your view selection when you close out of PG

Yup...that is not implemented yet

I also just noticed the eager loading option in the settings

This has been in the app for at least 2 releases. If you often have large images, this might take up a lot of memory and slow down the app. I tested this on an album with pictures about 300MB each...and my phone held up good though.

You have to click a little below it or to the empty area to the side to be able to open it

Jeez...I thought it was my fingers when I ran into this. Will look into it.

[Nostang3]

My bad for not noticing the options or forgetting. I can get into a rut with using apps. I'll make it a point to mess with more settings on the debug version

[puregallery]

It's fine...no worries. I enabled analytics to see what viewType users would prefer...and very few people use the nested type either way. What are your thoughts on it? I can increase the height of each row(album)...which would make the media items more legible. Right now, each album has about 1/3 of the screen height.

Should I leave the nested option as the default? You will be able to change it from the toolbar in the final release though.

[Nostang3]

Btw...you can now copy/move items from hybrid albums(timeline, tags, locations etc)

How does this work? I tried long pressing on a picture in timeline and it gave me the option to tag, info, view, or set album cover. For tags or library(I didn't see location) i can't long press the items. I can't long press in Albums view either.

On my pixel xl in the albums view I only get 3 if I had only 1 row showing in each album. In most albums I have 2 rows showing so I only see 2 full albums. But as far as image size goes, I can pretty clearly see what is in each picture without needing open it. Do you plan on adding an option to be able to move/copy pictures on this nested view?

I think leaving as the default is fine since you can change it if you want something different. People might use it more often if they see it and forgot about the view like me.

Also, scrolling through the tagged view stutters alot. I have a lot of tags and a lot of items tagged with those tags. So in some cases one tag could have hundreds of photos attached to it. I also probably have 200 tags.

[puregallery]

How does this work? I tried long pressing on a picture in timeline and it gave me the option to tag, info, view, or set album cover. For tags or library(I didn't see location) i can't long press the items. I can't long press in Albums view either.

Oops, I enabled that option for debug builds only...I have been testing that on my debug builds for quite a while to identify potential failures. Eitherway, since I sent you a release version of the dev builds, it didn't appear. I will send another build shortly...

On my pixel xl in the albums view I only get 3 if I had only 1 row showing in each album. In most albums I have 2 rows showing so I only see 2 full albums. But as far as image size goes, I can pretty clearly see what is in each picture without needing open it. Do you plan on adding an option to be able to move/copy pictures on this nested view?

Yes, I tinkered with this a bit. When you have more than 6(need to check the number) items in the albums, I display 2 rows...else, the album will be displayed in a single row. Move/copy is going to be quite hard in the nested view frankly. I will look into it...but cannot promise a timeline for it.

Also, scrolling through the tagged view stutters alot. I have a lot of tags and a lot of items tagged with those tags. So in some cases one tag could have hundreds of photos attached to it. I also probably have 200 tags.

I know that it stutters the first time those images are loaded and cached. Let me know if this continues...Also, I want to reproduce your steps to see how bad it is. You use a pixel 2 right?

[Nostang3]

OG Pixel XL.

[puregallery]

Ok...I will try it out. I uploaded a new build to the same folder...please try that.

[Nostang3]

Installed. Should I be looking for any particular changes between the previous build?

A quick test of the tagged view still has some stutter. I took the time to scroll slowly to the bottom of the list to it would create thumbnails for all the items but scrolling fast seems to lag on loading those thumbnails back. That or I've hit some limit of cached thumbnails and it is recreating them again as I scroll.

[puregallery]

Installed. Should I be looking for any particular changes between the previous build?

I enabled the move/copy from all places in this build...also, a few fixes to the toolbar options.

I didn't look into the stuttering issue yet...I have an old Nexus 6P running Oreo, which had a bit of stuttering when I tested. I'll see what I can do. Btw...the stuttering doesn't appear when I scroll through the album horizontally...I see it only while scrolling vertically.

[Nostang3]

I only see the stuttering in vertical scrolling in nested Tags View. In an Albums or on Timeline it's fine.

[puregallery]

If you are using aspect ratio, can you disable the it from settings and see if it gets better?

[Nostang3]

That removes the stuttering.

Also, have you thought about making the whole splash screen the same green as the icon. I think that would mimic the popular apps Twitch, Snapchat and such all use the App color as the whole background.

[puregallery]

Hmm...that's a good idea frankly. Let me try it out. Found a small optimization to remove the stuttering issue. Can you download the build from drive and give a try? Try this with aspect ratio as well.

[Nostang3]

Did you make the change in this build or for a future release?

The stuttering is gone in nested view.

[puregallery]

Did you make the change in this build or for a future release?

Still testing this one.

The stuttering is gone in nested view.

I was excited about this...glad this was addressed

[puregallery]

Pushed a new build to the drive folder... I have changed the splash screen now...and fixed the click issues on the nested album names. I believe this is close to a final version. I will test this a bit further and release it over the weekend.

[Nostang3]

The splash screen looks very nice now! Click issue is working.

An issue I noticed was that if you change from like Timeline to Albums/Library while it's refreshing it makes the screen while. Attempting to scroll brings the pictures back though but the blankness keeps coming back.

[Nostang3]

Since we doing debug issues here for now, if you move a photo(s) from one album, emptying it, to another, and back out to the main album view the folder still shows the files till you swipe down to refresh.

[puregallery]

I fixed the move issue... I couldn't reproduce the blank issue, but attempted a small fix at it...let me know if it helped.

Remembering the tab position is still WIP

[Nostang3]

I think the fix worked for the blank issue and the move issue is fixed and very responsive now.

[puregallery]

I saw the blank issue just now...looks like this is not fixed completely

[Nostang3]

On the albums tagged with a couple pinned albums, the first pinned album(second in list) and the second to last album are switched when you open the image from nested view. The albums are in the "right" order but when you open a nested image in the second album it opens an image from the second to the bottom album and vice versa.

[puregallery]

Fixed the wrong image opening issue...try the latest build. I think the blank issue should not happen anymore.

I saw an issue where the TimeLine ended up empty though...if you see this, and know a good path to reproducing it...please let me know.

[Nostang3]

It now opens the correct image on nested view. I'll keep an eye for the timeline issue.

Edit: It seems that untoggling show hidden doesn't remove items from the timeline that are hidden.

[puregallery]

I pushed a new build to the drive folder... Fixed the empty timeline issue...and an issue with the black theme. The hidden items in the timeline view looks a little weird. The items will animate as soon as you scroll it.

EDIT: Ah, found the reason for the blank screens and for the hidden items. Will push a fix for this soon.

[Nostang3]

So I went into a hidden album in nested Album view, selected two photos and deleted them, but they were not removed from the folder. At least the thumbnails wasn't. I did it again, thinking I might have not hit the okay button and hit just off to the side and cleared the dialog. Same thing. I had to pull down to refresh before the files disappeared.

Should we create a thread for Debug issues so we aren't adding to this one?

[puregallery]

The bug that started this story is addressed eitherway...I changed the title.

I will look into the delete issue.

[puregallery]

I pushed a new build... Can you check the delete issue there? And I believe this is the last of the 'UI not loading properly' issue.

[Nostang3]

Delete issue is still present. If after you delete a photo and the photos is still selected, swiping down to refresh will put into a seemingly infinite load animation. Hitting back arrow will remove the selection. Hitting it again will exit to the main album view. Backing out of the album does not refresh the view to remove the album/photo from the album.

[puregallery]

Ah, sorry...I had to rewrite all the moving/copy logic since the app has to handle the hybrid albums now. I forgot to add the post-delete code here. The files are deleted, but the UI was not attempting to refresh after that.

[puregallery]

Ok...check the new build now. Delete issue is fixed.

Let me know if you come across any other issues. This is close to a final build.

[Nostang3]

The issue is not fixed unfortunately. It is still not refreshing the folder when a photo is deleted.

[puregallery]

Yikes...called a deprecated method. Please try now. Also, I have changes to remember the home page position....you can access them in settings.

[Nostang3]

I don't know if I'm not grabbing the right version or my phone isn't updating to the new app but i'm getting the blank screen issue, the album isn't refreshing after deletion, and it's not remembering it's place like you say it should.

[puregallery]

Hmm....that's odd. I just did a clean build and uploaded it again. Maybe your drive app is still giving you a cached version. Try refreshing and make sure the upload time is the same as this message's timestamp.

[Nostang3]

I'm opening it in a private window in firefox on desktop then copying the file to the device and installing from there. I'll try uninstalling the file and installing the new version.

[Nostang3]

I think it's the right version now. I deleted a file and it properly removed the picture but the refresh animation is stuck on screen while in the album. Backing out will clear the animation.

It isn't remembering the home screen view. Backing out of the app then opening it back up always starts on the start screen. I"m using nested view.

Blank screen hasn't reappeared yet.

[puregallery]

You need to make a selection from the settings for this to work...the default screen it reverts to is Timeline Or is this not working despite that?

I think it's the right version now. I deleted a file and it properly removed the picture but the refresh animation is stuck on screen while in the album. Backing out will clear the animation.

I see the animation not being dismissed too...let me look into that.

[Nostang3]

No, that's my bad, missed that part about setting it in settings. That works now that I'm doing it correctly.

[puregallery]

Cool...good to know. I just pushed a build fixing the delete issue.

[Nostang3]

The delete issue seems to be fixed, but I noticed that moving suffers from the same issue.

[puregallery]

Did you see this in a regular album, or a hybrid one - like tags, timeline..

[Nostang3]

I can't say for certain. Because you can't see what album the file is in to be sure. It does something when I move on timeline(photo sort changes and moves around) and when I go to album view after it shows the right folder. It seems that it only happens when I'm on Album view and inside a folder.

[puregallery]

Moving items in timeline(hybrid albums) is a bit complicated...I cannot simply not show the albums that the selected items belong to...and the items that belong to the same destination folder are simply ignored.

I was actually planning on showing a summary at the end of move/copy process to explain which items are moved successfully...and which ones are ignored. I did test the move process today, and didn't see any irregularities. I will test this a bit further to make sure it is not messy.

Once this issue is resolved, I am planning to push the release

[puregallery]

Did you get a chance to test this further?