we are trying a access a file on Computer on a specific location through wired Connection and display contents on android device. Can someone suggest how should we approach.
Android device is separated to the others, hence you can't access to anything on your Computer. Think of it, computer is computer, mobile is mobile, design for security :)
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I am trying my hands on the android app development and need your suggestions to mitigate my current situation.
My organization has disabled USB for the desktop and I wouldn't be able to connect my phone through USB to test my application as I code.
I have installed genymotion but since it is behind proxy, in all the ways I could configure it, it gives proxy authentication error.
The avd is comparitively slower and the app which am trying needs internet connectivity at every step. I have tried these too and my impression is that we can make
the avd work for connecting to internet through its webbrowser but it cannot connect to internet within the apps. I might be wrong here. Please let me know if it is not the case.
Is there any other way where we can install the app in the phone as and when we code to test it..?
One option can be to export an apk file everytime and install them on the phone by sending this apk through a mail. But this will be a cumbersome activity if we have to test as and when we code.
Any suggestions on this..?
PS: I do not want to hack the desktop to enable the USB.Also using an external laptop with USB enabled is out of option in my case.
Many thanks.
Another way is using AirDroïd. You just need to install it on your test device, and you can manage it with a webapp :
your.static.ip.xx:8888
You can install your app with that way, it's really easy, you don't need any account in a local network.
For testing... no idea without usb, or without the emulator. Maybe you can log everything in a text file & get it (with airdroid for example).
EDIT
I think if you create an account you can use it external of you network.
http://web.airdroid.com/
Just create an account, & log on web & on the app, you could use it on the external way.
Why are you even bothering to use the desktop PC when your organization has made it unsuitable for development.
It will be hard work, but you could do all your development on the Android device itself, using AIDE
(Actually AIDE is pretty practical as a IDE if you have a large screen tablet, and pair it with a full size bluetooth keyboard).
Quote: "Inside your project bin folder there is an apk file. If you copy that file to a device you can then install the app from it.
When I am in your situation I throw my apk into dropbox and send out links for people to download it."
from this link
I doubt that if your company has disabled USB they still allow Bluetooth, but because you did not state it specifically:
If you can use Bluetooth, the best way would be to use it for running and debugging your App.
There are some Tutorials on the web.
For Example: http://zcourts.com/2013/07/19/android-debugging-over-bluetooth-without-root/
I am trying to connect my Android Tablet to a hospital machine.
This machine has the ability to print to several printers like a "Canon IP2600".
But when I connect my Tablet to the machine and try to print from the machine to the tablet, the machine says: USB Printer not found. (of course).
Now my question is, how can I make the machine think there is a printer connected instead of an android tablet?
My theory is: when connecting the tablet to the machine, the tablet usb device descriptor is sent to the machine and this device descriptor doesn't resemble one of a "Canon IP2600".
Am I thinking in the right direction? Any advice is welcome.
AFAIK tablets aren't designed to be "printed" to.
I'm not saying what you want to do is impossible, but I'm not sure if it's realistic. You're going to be looking at building a lot of custom software. In order to "print" to a usb device, you're going to need to write drivers for you OS (I'm assuming windows) that will allow the computer to see that cable connection as a printer. Even after you've done that, you need to write some more drivers and software to allow the tablet to understand when it's been connected to a computer and accept incoming prints.
I'm not sure how flexible your requirements are, but a more realistic option might be to use Google Drive (formerly Google Docs). You could print on the computer to a PDF file (using something like PrimoPDF) and save it directly in the Google Drive folder. With sync setup, the file would be available on your tablet using the Google Drive App within seconds.
I have business requirement where user wants to copy file from Android device into Windows 7 laptop via USB from android app(i.e. programmatically) because there is no wifi or cell data coverage available. I want to know if it is possible or not? How? Example would be appreciated.
Thanks
Look up adb, and from this you can do a simple script
The easiest way that I can think of would be storing the file in a specific location on the device's SD card (or internal memory), and then writing a program for the computer that copies the file from the device.
When an Android device is plugged in to a PC (through USB?), is the internal file system mapped to a drive letter on the PC? So that one can copy files to and from the Android under Windows?
And, can Emulator simulate the situation when it's plugged in? How?
Thank you in advance!
Yes, it CAN be mapped to a drive letter. It was much easier with something like a Droid X (Android 2.3), since it would show up as a mass storage device (disconnecting the card from your phone in the meantime), but it's also possible on newer phones such as the LG G3 if you're willing to install 2 free programs, which you probably would like to have anyway.
ES File Explorer - Remote Manager (FTP Server)
First, you need a file manager, not only because the built-in one is useless, but also because you need an FTP server. Install "ES File Explorer" on your Android Device. Then in the options, turn on the "Remote Manager" option, which will activate the FTP server and show you its local address like "192.168.1.3:3721. You can now access your phone as an FTP site from your computer when on your local WiFi network.
Net Drive - Remote Drive Mapping Utility
Next, all you have to do is install NetDrive: http://netdrive.net/ It's freeware and seems to be used by a lot of companies, because it lets you map cloud storage to local drives. That will allow you to map your FTP server on your phone as a local drive.
Don't bother trying to map an FTP site with explorer. First, you may run into a problem that's apparently caused by Chrome, where you can't even add an FTP network location. You'll get an unexpected error telling you the path format is invalid. Interestingly, that is solved by opening the registry editor, then under [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ftp] add a key named "ShellFolder" with string value "{E436EBB6-524F-11CE-9F53-0020AF0BA770}". The error will immediately cease occurring, with no restart or any other action required. Just go back in and add the ftp network location. That, however, still does not allow you to map it to a drive letter, which is why you need NetDrive.
As of Android 4, the wise ones have removed USB Mass Storage support for accessing the internal phone memory. So you no-longer get direct block-access (or a driver letter in windows). You can usually choose on the phone between MTP, or PTP (Media / Photo Transfer protocols) for whichever your OS supports better.
If your device has removable storage it should still support USBMS (with a drive letter) for that partition. At least Android still supports that, but your Manufacturer or Carrier-ware may still fail you here.
However, when it comes to the phone memory, there was a trade-off made in Honeycomb. Unified storage prevents wasted space (no more separate storage for phone / data, and having one fill up first and having confused frustrated users trying to move apps to SD, etc). The trade-off requires that:
Android can no longer ever yield up the storage for the host PC to
molest directly over USB.
Initially for Mac and Linux where support for MTP/PTP has been slower, You can use an FTP app on your phone. But now there is an increasing number of Desktop (PC/Mac/Linux) apps that understand and support the MTP or PTP protocols. You just don't get block access and so you can't get a drive letter without some hackery / third party software.
There have been hacks over the years to make FTP or WebDav or some other protocol work behind a windows drive letter, and something like could still work work for these MTP/PTP protocols, but I have yet to see any such consumer usable software for windows.
If your Linux distro doesn't include MTP support, gMTP seems pretty popular.
You can mount the device via USB but (in Win7 at least) it doesn't appear to have its own drive letter; rather it's treated like a camera or another media device. It doesn't mount automatically; you generally need to "opt-in" in the notification area with something like "Turn on USB storage"
Don't know about emulators.
Using Eclipse you can push and pull files to the emulator using the DDMS perspective. Doing similar on a real device, iirc will require root access to the device, at least to get to the 'sensitive' areas.
The SDK tools will also provide a way of push and pull via the command line.
possible with https://github.com/billziss-gh/sshfs-win
difficult finding good sshservers for android, know that at least one works but doesn't autostart at wifi and have to manually restarted, which it was possible to "come home from work, drive is connected"
this server seams to work fine
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.xnano.android.sshserver.tv&hl=en_US
Wanted to backup(incremental) android device using Areca backup utility which requires src and dest to have drive paths.
After trying various methods like adb-sync, Syncthing, webDAV, etc. Got it working with ftp sharing.
Download any ftp server app. I used "WiFi FTP Server" by Medha Apps on Playstore to create a ftp server something like this- ftp://username:*#xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:yyyy where username can be set in app settings and xxx is i.p. with yyyy as port number.
Map ftp URL to drive path by using free app- "DirectNet Drive"
Use the drive as if it's in your own system, though it will be slow being wireless.
I would like to have an application sync itself with some files on a host computer.. Anyone know if this is possible? Eg: When you connect an Android phone to a computer i would like an application on the android system to read some allowed folders on the connected computer. Making it so the user doesn't have to sync files itself.
I ask possible, because i assume it isn't.. for security.
You won't be able to do it solely from the Android end, because Windows doesn't make the local drives available through the USB port like that (unless you have some custom driver on the Windows side).
Your Android device will probably show up to windows as a USB drive. If you have an SD card plugged in, you may see a second drive from the Windows side.
To do something like this, you'd probably need to have software running on the Windows side that did the syncing, and then copy the data from the /sdcard directory on the Android device to wherever you ultimately need it to be.