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Locus SD card support in Android 5 (Lollipop) ?

Celda shared this question 8 years ago
Answered

Much has been written about SD card support in Androids >= 4.4.2 (http://www.locusmap.eu/locus-run-since-update-device-android-4-4-2-kitkat/).


However, I have recently come accross a brand new device running Android 5 but finally had to use one of the methods descibed above anyway. As far as I know (https://metactrl.com/docs/sdcard-on-lollipop/) Google has relented a little bit and made the card accessible again, if the particular application has got support for it.

Is there this type of support in Locus ?

Replies (5)

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Hi Celda,


just few days ago updated page: http://docs.locusmap.eu/doku.php?id=manual:faq:use_sdcard_on_kitkat#changes_in_android_50 , read at bottom. That is all I may do with this.

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Wow, you are always 5 minutes ahead ! :-)

BTW, what's the problem Locus still cannot use SD card the same way it used to do it in the old days of Android 2 ? To give you an example - On the Android 5 device I mentioned I also installed Total Commander (a famous file manager) which seems to have full support for Android 5 SD support. After I confirmed some dialogue, the whole SD card seems to be accessible for TC for writing !!!

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It is not so simple to explain if you are not developing for Android, anyway access to SD card is not done in same way as before but over some special database, where every file is item in this database. Result is = painfully slow access, terrible work, and useless support for already existing tool that work on all other devices around the world. So for example very simple SQLite database that Locus use for points/tracks/all raster maps, cannot be used in this case.

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So it means viruses can get to the SD card again (the same way TC does) but it remains practically unusable for normal programs ...


Thank you, Google ! The road to hell must be paved with good intentions ...

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Well viruses ... hmm probably not so easy, but yes also. And for "normal" programs it is system without serious problems. But in case of more complex apps like Locus it is real horror :). I spend on it by my measurements, more then 40 hours and result is, that only minor part of files (fortunately at least vector maps), may be usable from card. I'm sure that no, more advanced application, will be able to completely move to root of SD card because of this. Unfortunately ...

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