Does Android have the concept of a text editor like Linux does?
You know, you tap on any text file & it comes up in that text editor?

The text file for Windows & Linux is OUTSIDE of the text editor.
The text editor itself doesn't store anything in its private space.
Everything is stored in the text file.

You know, like how Windows & Linux does things.
Does Android have that concept?

Everything I've seen so far in Android works different than that.
The editors seem to keep the text file inside of the editor.
In some special proprietary format.
And database.

An example is Joplin. And Tasks. And Notes. And MS Office.

I don't want that.
I just want a text editor just like Windows & Linux does things.

Usually I copy the text file over to Android from Windows.
But sometimes I make the text file on Android with a file manager.

Is it possible to have a normal text editor on Android
so that I can open any text file from anywhere in that Android text editor?

Mickey D <mickeydavis078XX@ptd.net> wrote or quoted:
>Is it possible to have a normal text editor on Android
>so that I can open any text file from anywhere in that Android text editor?

On early Android versions there were no such problems. Then it
was changed so that, as a default, every app (package) can only
control its "own files". But an app that is aware of this new
regulation may ask the user to grant additional permissions to
access files in more directories IIRC. If you can't find such
an editor, a quick fix might be to store all text files into the
"directory of the editor" if possible. As another example, I wanted
to view an HTML file with a browser, turned out, I had to copy
that file into the "downloads" directory of that browser IIRC!

It seems they want isolated apps, island apps. Users should never
learn or forget that cross-app files exist.

I'd love to buy devices with Android 2.2, but it seems one
cannot buy new devices with Android 2.2 anymore. I even managed
to buy a device that says "2.2" on the box, but then had 2.4
installed. And things have gone even more astray since then ...

|People are crazy and times are strange
|I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
|I used to care, but things have changed
Bob Dylan

Mickey D <mickeydavis078XX@ptd.net> writes:

> Does Android have the concept of a text editor like Linux does?

These days, when people say text editor they often mean word
processor. So which kind do you mean? Libreoffice Writer kind or the
plain text kind that's in Linux handled by Emacs or vi or nano or
whatever?

Anyways, assuming the latter, for me it's usually enough to use the
included text editor in Ghost Commander but I guess it doesn't
count. With a quick search SimpleEditorFree came up and it seems like an
example of that so the answer to your question is yes.

ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote or quoted:
> But an app that is aware of this new
>regulation may ask the user to grant additional permissions to
>access files in more directories IIRC.

Few years ago, to do this, the app had to:

- declare MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE in its manifest, and

- use the ACTION_MANAGE_ALL_FILES_ACCESS_PERMISSION intent action
so that the user can enable this.

Mickey D <mickeydavis078XX@ptd.net> wrote:
> Does Android have the concept of a text editor like Linux does?
> You know, you tap on any text file & it comes up in that text editor?
>
> The text file for Windows & Linux is OUTSIDE of the text editor.
> The text editor itself doesn't store anything in its private space.
> Everything is stored in the text file.
>
> You know, like how Windows & Linux does things.
> Does Android have that concept?
>
> Everything I've seen so far in Android works different than that.
> The editors seem to keep the text file inside of the editor.
> In some special proprietary format.
> And database.
>
> An example is Joplin. And Tasks. And Notes. And MS Office.
>
> I don't want that.
> I just want a text editor just like Windows & Linux does things.
>
> Usually I copy the text file over to Android from Windows.
> But sometimes I make the text file on Android with a file manager.
>
> Is it possible to have a normal text editor on Android
> so that I can open any text file from anywhere in that Android text editor?

I feel your pain! :-)

I don't do much editing on Android, but when I have to, it's indeed a
pain to edit a simple POA (Plain Old ASCII) text file.

My first so-so solution was 'FX TextEdit' which is part of the 'FX
File Explorer' [1].

As I'm an 'ex' Unix person, I do all my text file editing on Windows
in vim, so I looked for a vim-for-Android and got 'DroidVim' [2].
DroidVim is usable, but the small screen and keyboard of a phone make it
still quite akward to use. Also the CUI (Character/'Console' UI) of vim
doesn't quite fit the GUI of Android.

N.B. For both FX TextEdit and DroidVim, the text file must have a .txt
extension, otherwise a file manager can not find an app to open the
file.

Personally, I would prefer something like (Windows) Notepad on
Android, but haven't found that yet (but haven't being looking very hard
yet).

[1] <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nextapp.fx>

[2] <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.droidvim>

Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote or quoted:
>still quite akward to use. Also the CUI (Character/'Console' UI) of vim
>doesn't quite fit the GUI of Android.

That's what I liked about Android 2.2. You could install
"TerminalIDE", which would open a terminal and give you a
fully-fledged UN*X environment with a kind of bash, vim and
a java compiler, aapt, apkbuilder, signer and the usual GNU
tools so you could develop Java apps for Android on Android
and then also start them from the command line.

I developed some simple apps in this shell editing them with
vim on my Android device.

But then Google changed something, and, today, such things do
not seem to be possible anymore.

Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote or quoted:
> >still quite akward to use. Also the CUI (Character/'Console' UI) of vim
> >doesn't quite fit the GUI of Android.
>
> That's what I liked about Android 2.2. You could install
> "TerminalIDE", which would open a terminal and give you a
> fully-fledged UN*X environment with a kind of bash, vim and
> a java compiler, aapt, apkbuilder, signer and the usual GNU
> tools so you could develop Java apps for Android on Android
> and then also start them from the command line.
>
> I developed some simple apps in this shell editing them with
> vim on my Android device.
>
> But then Google changed something, and, today, such things do
> not seem to be possible anymore.

There are still several Linux environments for Android, Termux,
Andronix, UserLAnd, etc.. Just search the Google Play website on "linux"
and you'll find them. Termux seems to have some problems with newer
Android versions, but the Google Play page explains how to get other
versions from github.

My 'knowledge' about these is only theoretical and from (positive)
hearsay. I do not have practical experience with these, because I have
all the Unix-like stuff I need on my Windows laptop (Cygwin). This very
post is brought to you by courtesy of vim and tin! :-)

Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:
> Mickey D <mickeydavis078XX@ptd.net> wrote:
> > Does Android have the concept of a text editor like Linux does?
> > You know, you tap on any text file & it comes up in that text editor?
> >
> > The text file for Windows & Linux is OUTSIDE of the text editor.
> > The text editor itself doesn't store anything in its private space.
> > Everything is stored in the text file.
> >
> > You know, like how Windows & Linux does things.
> > Does Android have that concept?
> >
> > Everything I've seen so far in Android works different than that.
> > The editors seem to keep the text file inside of the editor.
> > In some special proprietary format.
> > And database.
> >
> > An example is Joplin. And Tasks. And Notes. And MS Office.
> >
> > I don't want that.
> > I just want a text editor just like Windows & Linux does things.
> >
> > Usually I copy the text file over to Android from Windows.
> > But sometimes I make the text file on Android with a file manager.
> >
> > Is it possible to have a normal text editor on Android
> > so that I can open any text file from anywhere in that Android text editor?
>
> I feel your pain! :-)
>
> I don't do much editing on Android, but when I have to, it's indeed a
> pain to edit a simple POA (Plain Old ASCII) text file.
>
> My first so-so solution was 'FX TextEdit' which is part of the 'FX
> File Explorer' [1].
>
> As I'm an 'ex' Unix person, I do all my text file editing on Windows
> in vim, so I looked for a vim-for-Android and got 'DroidVim' [2].
> DroidVim is usable, but the small screen and keyboard of a phone make it
> still quite akward to use. Also the CUI (Character/'Console' UI) of vim
> doesn't quite fit the GUI of Android.
>
> N.B. For both FX TextEdit and DroidVim, the text file must have a .txt
> extension, otherwise a file manager can not find an app to open the
> file.
>
> Personally, I would prefer something like (Windows) Notepad on
> Android, but haven't found that yet (but haven't being looking very hard
> yet).
>
> [1] <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nextapp.fx>
>
> [2] <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.droidvim>

One approach is to install termux, you then have a choice of many
Linux/Unix text editors. It still has a small screen of course but
one big advantage (for me anyway) is that I can have exactly the same
editor on Android as on all my Linux systems (a vi look-alike called
vile in my case).

--
Chris Green
·

On Fri, 08 Mar 2024 12:09:39 +0200, Anssi Saari wrote:

>> Does Android have the concept of a text editor like Linux does?
>
> These days, when people say text editor they often mean word
> processor. So which kind do you mean? Libreoffice Writer kind or the
> plain text kind that's in Linux handled by Emacs or vi or nano or
> whatever?
>
> Anyways, assuming the latter, for me it's usually enough to use the
> included text editor in Ghost Commander but I guess it doesn't
> count. With a quick search SimpleEditorFree came up and it seems like an
> example of that so the answer to your question is yes.

Thank you for that simple editor suggestion where I will test it out!

Simple Text Editor - TextPad by Maxim Starkov
https://github.com/maxistar/TextPad

What I will test are the following basic requirements.
a. An existing *.txt file can be opened with the editor
(But so can any other text editor open that *.txt file)
b. Changes to a *.txt file can be saved by the editor
(again, allowing any other text editor to edit them)
c. The editor should open a new (empty) *.txt created
on the Android file system and allow other editors.
d. A shortcut to the *.txt file should open it up.

In other words, the text editor and the text file should be separate
entities even after the text editor creates or edits the text file.

On 8 Mar 2024 10:59:38 GMT, Stefan Ram wrote:

>> But an app that is aware of this new
>>regulation may ask the user to grant additional permissions to
>>access files in more directories IIRC.
>
> Few years ago, to do this, the app had to:
>
> - declare MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE in its manifest, and
>
> - use the ACTION_MANAGE_ALL_FILES_ACCESS_PERMISSION intent action
> so that the user can enable this.

Thank you for that helpful information as text editing on Android should be
as simple and versatile as text editing is already on Windows & Linux.

Based on a suggestion in this thread from Anssi Saari, I found this app
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.maxistar.textpad

TextPad can be compiled with Android Studio according to the github.
https://github.com/maxistar/TextPad

Which means maybe we can change the switches if we want to change them?
Looking specifically at the permission in F-droid gave weird results.
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.maxistar.textpad/

The latest version of TextPad has two (new?) permissions listed.

Permissions Version 1.24.2 (42) Added on Nov 15, 2023
Modify or delete the contents of your shared storage
(Allows the app to write the contents of your shared storage)
Read the contents of your shared storage
(Allows the app to read the contents of your shared storage)

The other two versions have NO PERMISSIONS listed.
Version 1.24.1 (41) - Added on Aug 05, 2023
Version 1.24.0 (40) - Added on Aug 07, 2022

What does that mean in light of what you warned about Android
changing the permissions to make normal text editing impossible?

Should I install the older versions without permissions?
Or the newer version that has those two permissions added?