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Comment by BuildTheWorld | Hacker News Reader

Now that websites can use the File System Access API to load and save files, the Desktop is "solved" for me. Everybody can use my software simply by opening the url in their browser.

The new challenge is phones. Mobile browsers do not support the File System Access API.

What is a solution to this? Is there a reputable service that converts a web page into an Android/iOS app so that it can load and save files?

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Phones just don't make a good analog to computers with a robust file system browser. My experience is if you're downloading something on a phone, it's never going be used again. It will sit there until a factory reset.

How many restaurant menus have I downloaded read once and never cleared off? I don't know. I also don't care. If I did care, I would want to use "Save As..." and save to google drive.

Phones have as robust file system browsers as desktop computers.

It's probably just that the users of phones are not that "robust" and organized to care where the files are.

I think you are missing a step in your conclusion there. The reason users aren't as robust in organizing where their files come is because file browsing on phones isn't as robust.

On the android side the file browser that comes with the phone (if any) is bare bones. This combined with various sandboxing can make it pretty annoying to know exactly where your files end up.

Then there is the fact that the small UI on phones simply isn't all that great for browsing a large list of files.

So, putting it squarely on users isn't correct imho.

Total Commander is great but there are tons of real file explorers for any user "robust" enough. I think what user above is pointing out what we have all noticed, people browsing the web from a phone are usually younger, less intelligent and unrefined enough to be better off not given access to the file system .

1. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ghisler.an...

You are only further affirming the point I am making. You need a third party app in order to be able to browse files well enough on Android devices. And even then you do not get the same experience as you would get on a desktop OS. Simply because the same amount of information (file name, icons, creation date, change date, file size) which does fit fine on desktop does not fit as well on a phone screen without creating huge clutter.

Of course, younger users never really having used a file system doesn't work either. But certainly calling them "less intelligent and unrefined" is a ridiculous hot take if I ever saw one.

And you affirm my point, that its incredibly easy for anyone to take 15 seconds to install a file browser but most won't because they are too daft. A good file explorer does does have all the bells and whistles on any OS (except iOS) not sure what straw man you are attacking there).

The people who don't bother to do so probably are better off without it anyway, so no harm no foul and everyone is better off.

One thing I'm missing is pkcs11 API in browsers. This seems to not make sense to US devs from what I could see but if you're in EU you can probably commiserate.

> Mobile browsers do not support the File System Access API

Unfortunately Safari on Desktop also doesn't support the File System Access API. Ditto for WebUSB, WebBluetooth, WebMIDI, etc. Whole classes of "desktop-lite" web apps that can only be shipped on Chrome.

It's kind of a hard sell to ship a web app that just doesn't work for normal users who bought a MacBook.

For me it makes sense when you start to see Chrome as an OS. Developers use Chrome specific API, which means the apps are not web apps, but Chrome apps (and the developers Chrome developers). Sure the Chrome (OS) is cross platform so it’s a great platform to develop your app. But it’s a little bit unfair (unless you consider that Google = the Web, which may be the reality I refuse to see).

>The new challenge is phones. Mobile browsers do not support the File System Access API.

Phones are an old challenge for now. Their OS is made upfront to coerce the user in having their data dealt by someone or something else out of the phone, somewhere through an Internet connection.

I partly agree with you, but File System Access API requires Chrome. Other browsers do not support it. And this API does not support checking for file changes on the file system, eg. To reload a changed file like desktop editors do.

File system access API is a chromium feature.

File System API is a baseline feature supported across all major vendors. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/File_System...

Ya, it's odd to say it's not on other browsers when they all have it just to variable degrees... it's almost as if there are comment bots here that are trained on outdated data ;)

Not a comment bot. File system API features are not universal. It's why you can have folder access on chromium and not on Firefox.

The ability to access the native filesystem (via showOpenFilePicker()) is indeed only available in Chromium.

For Firefox and Safari users, one can offer a fallback via "download file" and "upload file" functionality. Which is clunky, because it does not reliably remember the directory. So the user often has to navigate to the correct dir again. Also it does not offer to save with the same filename by default. So the user will be offered to download "myfile(2).txt" or something instead. But at least it works and you can tell your users to use Chromium for a better experience.

You can do this with javascript on android at least

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