Distinction between emblems and some options is not clear #467
Description
Device: Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini
OS: Cyanogenmod 13 (Android 6.0.1)
Server: OwnCloud 9.1.2
App: 1.4.0
I find the interface for the NextCloud app extremely confusing. I'll walk you through how I used it and where I tripped up.
I install the app, log in to my server, and open the settings to change local storage to be on my SD card. I go to "All files", navigate to a folder with pictures in it, and open a couple of pictures. When I go back to the folder, I see a green check mark on these photos. The Android app manual says:
Downloaded files are marked with a green arrow.
So far so good. I don't want them clogging up my storage though, so... what do I do now? I try long pressing on them, and this allows me to select it (and the other photo). There's an option to "set available as offline", but that seems redundant... they're already available offline. I try setting it and unsetting it anyway. Solid Explorer shows that they're still on my device.
Question: Is there a way to get them off my device?
Question: Are they being kept in sync? One-way? Two-way? Just locally cached?
I also try going to the "On device" section of the app. It shows me all the root level folders on the server, even the ones where I haven't looked at anything! The manual has nothing on this topic.
Question: How can I just see the files that are on my device? How can I clear them?
So now I browse to a document I want to maintain on both my phone and the server... keep it in sync, you might say. I long press it. There are two options: "set available offline" and "sync". I have no idea what the difference is. Don't these words usually mean the same thing? Is one a one-way and one a two-way sync? If so, which one? These options aren't even mentioned in the manual.
Question: What is the difference between these options?
I select "set available offline". A yellow emblem appears (an arrow pointing down to a line). Doesn't this sort of emblem usually mean "downloaded"? Like the green check mark?
Comment: I can see why you might use the green check mark the way you do — on desktop cloud storage apps it usually means "file is now synced locally". But on desktop apps there's usually no distinction between a one-off download and files that are kept in two-way sync. In this app, it gets confusing. If I saw the yellow emblem by itself, I'd actually assume that it meant what the green emblem means. I don't even know why you bother with the green one by itself... why does a user need to know what files are in a local cache, if they're not actually being synced?
Personally I'd suggest: green emblem for anything that's kept in sync that's fully downloaded, a blue circling arrow icon for anything that's currently syncing, and nothing at all for locally cached but not-synced files. A local unsynced cache seems like an implementation detail. The real feature I want is synced locally vs. access from cloud on demand, not downloaded once and possibly out of date vs. synced locally.
I realise this is an amalgam of a bunch of different issues. I tried to split it up a bit, but I realised I don't know enough about what your intent is with these features, options and emblems to be able to say "rename X to Y" or "this emblem should be this other thing". Some might be documentation issues, or they might be UX improvements. Feel free to tell me how they could be separated and I'll post them as separate issues.