Feat: Add path picker GUI #19855

ShaanNarendran · 2025-12-19T00:35:37Z

Purpose / Description

This pr adds a path picker gui when a user wishes to select a path through the advanced settings, if the user is using the google play version, it restricts their options to their internal storage or to an external sd card (it automatically gives them the sd card option, whereas before they would have to manually find the path). If the user is on the fullrelease or full debug, then they can give permissions to manage all storage and they can manually enter their path since scoped storage wouldn't be an issue.

Fixes

Fixes Nicer way to enter path to put the collection #3114

Approach

David's patch ended up working very nicely and I just implemented his TO-DO's with the exception of one which I wasn't too sure about.

How Has This Been Tested?

Checklist

Please, go through these checks before submitting the PR.

You have a descriptive commit message with a short title (first line, max 50 chars).
You have commented your code, particularly in hard-to-understand areas
You have performed a self-review of your own code
UI changes: include screenshots of all affected screens (in particular showing any new or changed strings)
UI Changes: You have tested your change using the Google Accessibility Scanner

ShaanNarendran · 2025-12-19T00:37:52Z

@david-allison I did apply your patch for this, but I wasn't sure if you were planning on making a pr for it since I didn't really do much so if you are then I will close this. Otherwise, if there's more changes to be made UI wise, I'd be happy to continue working on it

david-allison · 2025-12-19T03:23:39Z

It's been a long while, thanks!!

The path is truncated visually in one of the screenshots
Add a button to open the old selector
Ensure the app private directory and legacy storage is handled correctly

I don't recall my patch, but I wasn't planning on submitting it any time soon, thanks for seeing it through!!

AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/preferences/ExternalDirectorySelectionPreference.kt

ShaanNarendran · 2025-12-19T23:32:05Z

Will resolve all the changes, I thought I had reacted sorry TT

ShaanNarendran · 2025-12-20T01:16:37Z

The new UI look for the changes I just made are:

While using android 10 (i.e. no scoped storage)
Screen_recording_20251220_062115.webm

While using android 15 (playDebug)
Screen_recording_20251220_062210.webm

While using android 15 (fullDebug)
Screen_recording_20251220_062453.webm

Screenshot of new UI:

Note: it looks truncated but you can scroll down there, as seen in the videos

david-allison · 2025-12-20T15:39:04Z

There should be enough space on the screen that it doesn't need to be truncated

ShaanNarendran · 2025-12-20T22:50:12Z

There should be enough space on the screen that it doesn't need to be truncated

Do you think it would be better to reduce the existing text like say shorten it by removing "/storage/emulated/0" or should I resize the dialog altogether, the latter will have a lot of changes since the only method I've found is to make a subclass of ListPreferenceTrait and use setlayout there to change the size according to the screen

ShaanNarendran · 2025-12-20T23:12:05Z

Screen_recording_20251221_044059.webm
This is how it looks now, with the new subclass to match screen size

AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/preferences/ExternalDirectorySelectionPreference.kt

ShaanNarendran · 2025-12-21T16:33:12Z

@david-allison just a reminder since the needs author reply tag wasn't removed ^^

david-allison · 2025-12-22T03:40:37Z

Still on my to-do list, I'll get to it shortly!

david-allison

Select Custom Path
- /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.ichi2.anki.debug/files/AnkiDroi
Open Dialog Again
- 🪲 Dialog does not show the current path as an option
- 🪲 Selecting the top option does not apply the provided path

I would move the 'custom path' to a button at the bottom of the screen, with a very brief name. This means it won't be truncated at the bottom of the list if there's a number of entries

AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/preferences/ExternalDirectorySelectionPreference.kt

ShaanNarendran · 2025-12-22T17:14:37Z

Screen_recording_20251222_221717.webm
I've done my best to optimise as much as possible since I did have to move the scan logic to be started when the preference is opened. its my first very big commit so I hope it isn't too hard to review, have tried to document the functions I had created to help with the new custom path button.

Edit: video seems to be buffering, hope its just on my end

ShaanNarendran · 2025-12-22T17:31:12Z

Some screenshots of the UI now:

david-allison

My main concern is that the logic to switch between EditText and ListPreference is complicated.

Could you look into alternate solutions which require fewer variables/state?

AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/preferences/ExternalDirectorySelectionPreference.kt

david-allison · 2026-01-05T14:13:21Z

AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/preferences/ExternalDirectorySelectionPreference.kt

+        fun findAnkiDroidSubDirectories(f: File): List<File> {
+            // either returns '/AnkiDroid1...AnkiDroid100' from storage migration
+            // OR returns '/AnkiDroid' if no directories are available
+            val found = f.listFiles(ANKI_DIR_FILTER)?.toList()
+            return if (!found.isNullOrEmpty()) {
+                found
+            } else {
+                listOf(File(f, "AnkiDroid"))
+            }
+        }


This isn't good logic: multiprofile support needs to be considered, as does someone creating a custom directory on their SD Card/External Stroage via USB

This was the only thing I wasn't sure about, with the new commit it should handle custom directories with the custompath var but as for multiprofile, I believe we haven't implemented it yet so I wasn't sure how to handle support for it, maybe I could put a TODO for multiprofile support.

AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/preferences/ExternalDirectorySelectionPreference.kt

ShaanNarendran · 2026-01-05T14:37:32Z

I'll force push with the changes soon since there's a lot to be done I think, thank you for such a comprehensive review!

ShaanNarendran · 2026-01-08T19:49:28Z

just had a question regarding the file picker ui issue im doing. Right now, I have loadDirectories() running on the main thread and I had asked gemini to try and spot any issues and it said that having loadDirectories() on the main thread can cause ANR with devices having an older SD card and it's better to put it in the background (to me this makes sense since if the sd card can't load all the directories fast enough, the main thread is going to take too long and ANR occurs). I tried looking this up but wasn't able to find anything concrete, so I wanted to know if it's an actual issue and if its a better practice to throw it in the background?

Flagging the above for discussion, I'll leave this as a TODO in the code

ShaanNarendran · 2026-01-15T10:11:09Z

@david-allison super sorry for the late ping, had a lot of college work to finish off but I've addressed all the comments best I could!

david-allison

This looks solid!

Are tests possible here?

Fixing the AnkiDroid directory was critical functionality back in the day, and still is on older devices.

AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/preferences/ExternalDirectorySelectionPreference.kt

AnkiDroid/src/main/res/values/10-preferences.xml

ShaanNarendran · 2026-01-16T17:25:29Z

Are tests possible here?

To be honest, tests have been something I've been meaning to learn more about, I'll look into whether we can add them here once I clear the reviews and give another update!

ShaanNarendran · 2026-01-16T18:51:19Z

Still have to switch to using nio methods, will do this and look into the testing tomorrow

AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/preferences/ExternalDirectorySelectionPreference.kt

ShaanNarendran · 2026-01-17T16:04:12Z

Pushed with the nio addition, as well as the patch given

ShaanNarendran · 2026-01-17T16:13:43Z

@david-allison do we want the full stack trace displayed to the user, I thought it would be easier for users to read a localised messaged

david-allison · 2026-01-18T07:19:33Z

This is one of those places which is critical to use of the app.

Feel free to add a 'copy debug info' button which copies the stack trace.

If not, more information is better here, many users here are experienced, and filesystems (SD Cards etc...) are nasty

ShaanNarendran · 2026-01-18T10:06:12Z

This is one of those places which is critical to use of the app.

Feel free to add a 'copy debug info' button which copies the stack trace.

If not, more information is better here, many users here are experienced, and filesystems (SD Cards etc...) are nasty

I think adding another button would be too much, I've appended the stack trace in the most recent push do lmk if anymore changes are needed

david-allison

The trailing horizontal line is unexpected
I can no longer change my collection path, /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.ichi2.anki.debug//files/19855 is a valid collection path

ShaanNarendran · 2026-01-18T11:48:26Z

I can no longer change my collection path, /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.ichi2.anki.debug//files/19855 is a valid collection path

You're using the full debug build and can't enter a custom path to change it or is that directory not showing up in the list (in the play debug build) even though its valid?

Edit: I believe I've reproduced the issue, the file doesnt show up in the list even when its supposed to, will fix this

ShaanNarendran · 2026-01-18T17:35:57Z

I can no longer change my collection path, /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.ichi2.anki.debug//files/19855 is a valid collection path

You're using the full debug build and can't enter a custom path to change it or is that directory not showing up in the list (in the play debug build) even though its valid?

Edit: I believe I've reproduced the issue, the file doesnt show up in the list even when its supposed to, will fix this

The above is a cause of how we are loading directories, obviously the heuristic in place isn't the best so going to look for other solutions, ideas are appreciated currently thinking about implementing file filter more generally, will force push with a commit including the same soon

This feature allows users to choose a file path that exists on their device or an external storage device. If the user is using a full release version, or a pre android 11 version then they have the option to edit their path to a custom one Co-authored-by: David Allison <62114487+david-allison@users.noreply.github.com>

ShaanNarendran · 2026-01-19T11:23:14Z

AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/preferences/ExternalDirectorySelectionPreference.kt

+    }
+
+    companion object {
+        private val ANKI_DIR_FILTER = FileFilter { it.isDirectory }


I think this is better (could add a ishidden check), the regex was blocking files that were valid and either way we should only be seeing ankidroid files since "CollectionHelper.getAppSpecificExternalDirectories(context).filterNotNull()"
hope this is better, open to improvements

ShaanNarendran · 2026-01-19T11:24:05Z

AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/preferences/ExternalDirectorySelectionPreference.kt

+    attrs: AttributeSet?,
+) : ListPreference(context, attrs),
+    ListPreferenceTrait {
+    init {


I removed the edit text pref layout, it was causing issues with the horizontal line. I do like the current ui but I understand the truncation and vertical scrolling may not be nice for all users so open to suggestions here too

david-allison

It seems that there's a misunderstanding here, [so a test would be fantastic]

AnkiDroid Version = 2.24.0alpha2-debug (0fff3047b24701acbcaa6524fb27d6d9df95e47d)  
Backend Version = 0.1.63-anki25.09.2 (25.09.2 3890e12c9e48c028c3f12aa58cb64bd9f8895e30)  
Android Version = 15 (SDK 35)  
ProductFlavor = play  
Device Info = Google | google | emu64a | sdk_gphone64_arm64 | sdk_gphone64_arm64 | ranchu  
WebView Info = [com.google.android.webview | 749903433]: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 15; sdk_gphone64_arm64 Build/AE3A.240806.036; wv) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Chrome/143.0.7499.34 Mobile Safari/537.36  
ACRA UUID = 3e5d97f3-05bd-45e9-9942-4c392b26bf20  
FSRS = 5.1.0 (Enabled: false)  
Crash Reports Enabled = false

I have a standard Android [emulator] with no SD card
I am using play, so we can't access standard folders on external storage (/storage/emulated/0/AnkiDroid)
The one reasonable location that I can have an AnkiDroid Directory in is Android/data/com.ichi2.anki.debug/files/

But: Inside this folder, I can have multiple AnkiDroid Directories:

Android/data/com.ichi2.anki.debug/files/AnkiDroid (default)
Android/data/com.ichi2.anki.debug/files/Testing (custom)

This dialog needs to handle this case

In addition: selecting the root of files caused this to occur:

david-allison added Needs Author Reply Waiting for a reply from the original author Needs Review labels Dec 19, 2025

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ShaanNarendran commented Dec 20, 2025

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Feat: Add path picker GUI #19855

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Feat: Add path picker GUI #19855

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ShaanNarendran commented Dec 19, 2025

Purpose / Description

Fixes

Approach

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Checklist

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