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

ShaanNarendran · 2025-12-20T23:12:36Z

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

+            return null
+        } else {
+            dialogLayoutResource = initialLayoutResId
+            return FullWidthListPreferenceDialogFragment()


This was changed to return the new subclass

ShaanNarendran · 2025-12-20T23:14:18Z

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

+    private val initialLayoutResId = dialogLayoutResource
+
+    override fun makeDialogFragment(): DialogFragment? {
+        val useTextBox = (forceCustomSelector || isEditText(context))


This variable was added because I felt that the user should be able to see the list dialog again even if they choose custom path. Previously, the behaviour was that if they chose custom path, the text field would open and they could make their actions but when they went back to choose again, the text field would still open and not give them the list dialog

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

david-allison · 2025-12-22T05:00:48Z

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

+                val label = it.absolutePath.replace("/Android/", "\n/Android/")
+                ListPreferenceTrait.Entry(label, it.absolutePath)
+            }.toMutableList()
+            .apply { add(ListPreferenceTrait.Entry("Select custom path...", "CUSTOM_PATH_SENTINEL")) }


This would need to be translatable

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 · 2026-01-10T10:49:20Z

I believe I've made all the changes I wanted to push. I removed the very fragile logic that was there before, with the flags. Instead, I'm opening the dialogs directly and also I changed the text box dialog to the one that is being used in other places i.e. AnkiR.layout.dialog_generic_text_input
I tried to document the places I feel needed documenting, so hopefully everything looks good now.

ShaanNarendran · 2026-01-12T06:02:27Z

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


    data class Entry(
-        val key: String,
+        val key: CharSequence,


I don't think this is the best way to go about it, but unless I do this I get errors in lines 103 and 104

david-allison

I've asked for a second reviewer on Discord

Please ping me in 48 hours here, I'll need to give this a deeper dive, and likely submit a patch

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

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

david-allison · 2026-01-16T17:16:00Z

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

+                CollectionHelper
+                    .getAppSpecificExternalDirectories(context)
+                    .filterNotNull()
+                    .flatMap { findAnkiDroidSubDirectories(it) }
+                    .distinct()
+                    .filter { it.absolutePath != defaultDir?.absolutePath }
+                    .forEach { add(createEntry(it)) }


If there is 1 exception, it stops further iteration.

Extract this to a method which is more exception-safe

Maybe use addAll on the value of that method call

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

david-allison · 2026-01-16T17:18:38Z

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

+        listEntries = loadDirectories()
+        entries = listEntries.map { it.key }.toTypedArray()
+        setEntryValues(listEntries.map { it.value as CharSequence }.toTypedArray())
+        listValue = value ?: defaultAnkiDir?.absolutePath ?: ""
+        setValue(listValue)
+        return FullWidthListPreferenceDialogFragment()


This code feels unusual - I know it's an unusual abstraction, but flagging to see if we can do better.

I think it's because there's a lot going on here and also I did have to change the entry class to allow for the mapping, so it's not the best implementation definitely

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

david-allison · 2026-01-16T17:20:25Z

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

+    <string name="pref_directory_not_set">Not set</string>
+    <string name="pref_custom_path" maxLength="41">Custom path</string>
+    <string name="pref_enter_custom_path" maxLength="41">Enter custom path</string>
+    <string name="pref_cannot_create_directory">Cannot create directory</string>


Is could_not_create_dir not usable?

Didn't realise we had an existing string for it oops

david-allison · 2026-01-16T17:21:33Z

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

+    <string name="pref_custom_path" maxLength="41">Custom path</string>
+    <string name="pref_enter_custom_path" maxLength="41">Enter custom path</string>
+    <string name="pref_cannot_create_directory">Cannot create directory</string>
+    <string name="pref_directory_not_writable">Directory is not writable</string>


Consider using the nio (Java new input/output) methods, which throw good exceptions, then displaying a stack trace with to the user.

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

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

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 force-pushed the File-Picker branch 2 times, most recently from a8d65c5 to 7957d5d Compare December 20, 2025 01:05

ShaanNarendran force-pushed the File-Picker branch from 7957d5d to bb41f23 Compare December 20, 2025 23:09

ShaanNarendran commented Dec 20, 2025

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ShaanNarendran force-pushed the File-Picker branch from bb41f23 to ab78a9d Compare December 22, 2025 17:06

ShaanNarendran commented Dec 22, 2025

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Haz3-jolt removed the Needs Author Reply Waiting for a reply from the original author label Dec 25, 2025

david-allison self-requested a review January 5, 2026 13:49

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ShaanNarendran force-pushed the File-Picker branch from ab78a9d to cb5b6c0 Compare January 8, 2026 21:02

ShaanNarendran force-pushed the File-Picker branch 5 times, most recently from 2ee9832 to 9d60055 Compare January 10, 2026 10:41

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ShaanNarendran force-pushed the File-Picker branch 2 times, most recently from 4a6fbe0 to 7eb9ad7 Compare January 12, 2026 16:18

ShaanNarendran force-pushed the File-Picker branch 3 times, most recently from bfd4a04 to 81d2155 Compare January 15, 2026 10:22

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Feat: File Picker GUI

ad9be12

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

ShaanNarendran force-pushed the File-Picker branch from cd1e5fe to ad9be12 Compare January 16, 2026 19:57

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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

How Has This Been Tested?

Checklist

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