Can't view txt file
OK, so I purchased the app, and tried to transfer a text file over. I opened a Word file in Word, and did a "Save as" to save it as a text file. I transferred it over to the iPhone, and refreshed the list on the iPhone so that I could see the file. But when I selected it, all I could view was the document properties. It wouldn't show me the contents.
Back on the Mac, I used Cmd-I to look at the document properties, and I noticed that it said it was a Microsoft Word document, even though I had saved it as plain text, the extension was .txt, and looking at it on the Mac it was clearly plain text. So I thought that having the file type be Microsoft Word might have been causing the problem. So I opened the file in TextEdit and resaved it (under a different name to be sure) as a plain text file. When I looked at this file with Cmd-I, it clearly showed the file type as Plain text, but when I copied it to the phone and refreshed TouchFS on the phone, the same thing happened - I couldn't view the document itself, only the document properties.
Going back to the Word file, I was able to save it as both a PDF and an HTML file, and both worked fine, so I can view the file on my phone. But there seems to be some kind of problem with plain text. I can view the Readme plain text file that came with the app, so I don't know what's going on.
I also noticed that in order to transfer files, it seems that I have to have the phone turned on and the TouchFS app open. If the phone goes to sleep, I get disconnected from it in Finder. Is it designed to work this way? Once I understood what it was doing, it wasn't that hard to work around, but it's a little bit of a pain to have to make sure the phone stays on.
Seems like it's going to be a great app, but still has a few issues to deal with.
Thanks!
Sheila
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Please send the problematic text file to support
Sheila, sounds like you've done a great troubleshooting job. Can you email the problematic text file to our support address. I wonder how Word or TextEdit may be encoding the file. I haven't run into this issue myself, and would love to figure out what's going on.
Just send it with a subject line of Problem Text File or something like that.
And yes, you're correct that w/o TouchFS running, you won't be able to connect. This is because when you run TouchFS, a miniature web server is started on your iPhone that handles the file requests from your computer. If TouchFS isn't running, there's nothing on your iPhone listening for the commands your computer is trying to send, and your computer will disconnect.
We've been able to transfer files even when our screen sleeps if we turn the Auto Lock feature off in the iPhone settings. One of the items we're planning on putting into an updated version is to do this automatically when TouchFS is running so you won't have to.
Text File
I am having the same .txt problem
They appear to be loaded on my ipod touch but all I get is the document properties---none of the actual document
We've never experienced this in testing
All...we've opened countless text files before, from various platforms without any problems. That's why I'd like to see these files firsthand. Whether anyone sends them in or not, Sheila has provided enough information for us to reproduce this in the office. We're on it...
One thing that is an issue in the current version (that's fixed in the next update) is that files with CAPITAL extensions will not be viewable in TouchFS due to a bug I introduced. Make sure your file extensions are lowecase for now. I feel much shame, trust me.
More Text File Information
I opened a Word document I had laying around in Word 2004 and saved it each of the 5 text formats it supports:
You would not believe how many different ways there are to save what I had previously thought of as the "simplest" document format.
You would also not believe that the ONLY one to be viewable correctly is Text Only (MS-DOS).
Text Only with Line Breaks, and Text Only with Line Breaks (MS-DOS) are not viewable at all–just the file properties appear. Text Only, and Unicode Text (UTF16) are viewable, but all the text is run together...no line breaks appear.
We thought we had this text file viewer perfected because we let the iPhone determine the file encoding itself as that is supposed to be the most flexible way to open a text file.
I even followed Sheila's lead and opened and resaved each of these 5 files in TextEdit...I get the same results when opening them in TouchFS. I ran through the code in the debugger, and when the iPhone encounters one of these problematic text files, it throws an error that states
The file could not be opened because the text encoding of the contents could not be determined.For right now, if you're going to save a Word document as Text, make sure you choose a format like Text Only (MS-DOS).
Almost got it this time...
I think I got it fixed now. Modified code to try a few different encodings if the iPhone can't determine the encoding by itself. Now, all 5 of the files open, but the Text Only and Unicode Text (UTF-16) formats still run their lines together and show no line breaks.
Sorry I haven't been back to
Sorry I haven't been back to check, but it sounds like you're on it without my test file. I'll try saving as Text Only (MS-DOS) and see if that works. Thanks!
the same Sheila problem here!!!
I have the same problem here: can´t see ".txt" files on my iphone with the exception of the read me file...
so its not a question of "send me the problamatic file" because I have the same problem...
what should Sheila and I do please?...
why is that happen?...
P.S.: and why must I put an extra "0" on the access to my iphone? (see the other problem I have... Maybe Sheila has that problem to: no?...
Thanks
Vítor
Office Document Viewing Is Ready
I've been mentioning this throughout the forums and in my last blog post, but wanted to add it here too.
We'll have Office Document viewers available in the next update. That's Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
For our Mac users using iWork, we've also included viewers for Numbers and Pages documents as long as you save them with file previews enabled.
As what I consider a decent developer, the fact that we couldn't figure this out until now shames me a bit. *smile* Better late than never, I suppose.