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Forum Discussion
Cannot edit some text files in Dropbox on iPhone?
In the Dropbox app on iPhone SE, I can open all my text files, but in some of them I do not get the Edit icon (looks like a cursor) at bottom left, so cannot edit them.
In others, I get the Edi...
K-C-L (and others following)
Thanks! You're onto the right cause, and solution ...well, workaround.
Dropbox App editor won't handle either certain characters (extended) or Windows Notepad default ANSI files. A pretty obvious shortcoming. These get rendered in a non-editable file - which looks like monospaced courier, but doesn't make a space for each <spacebar>. Go figure.
Anyway, the workarounds are:
- Convert all your Notepad ANSI files to UTF-8 (open file in Notepad, Save As..., dropdown box -> choose UTF-8 and Save. (Save all new files as UTF-8). This is what I am doing.
- Open the file in Dropbox App. Select a word, then Select All. Copy. Create new file (Text). Paste into the window, name, and Create. Kinda klugy.
Those both work - I've tested.
- There is a way to change Notepad default to UTF-8, which would prevent this from re-occurring, but you have to touch the Registry (I don't want to do that)
- Download Notepad++ which apparently can set a default without touching the Registry (cannot verify). Reportedly Notepad++ takes less resources too (don't know about that either)
OK, a PITA. But do-able. I guess.
But, the real problem is Dropbox App cannot show text files (.txt) in monospaced font (e.g. Menlo or Courier). This is basically a disqualifier for Dropbox for musicians who use text files to create Tab, or Notation files, or chord charts. That's a lot of people left out in the cold. Since they all share files, so Dropbox could / should own this market, but have shut themselves out.
I had this problem with some of my files too. I found some extended ASCII characters (e.g., e-with-accent-grave) in a non-editable file. When I converged all extended ASCII characters to basic ASCII printable characters, the iPhone Dropbox app made the file editable.
As to the display font, my guess is that it is either chosen based on whether the file is editable or whether the ASCII is clean. Though it is strange that the monospaced font used when extended ASCII is present does not actually render the extended ASCII characters: it puts some generic blob there instead (which does make it easy to find the offending characters when scrolling through the file).
K-C-L (and others following)
Thanks! You're onto the right cause, and solution ...well, workaround.
Dropbox App editor won't handle either certain characters (extended) or Windows Notepad default ANSI files. A pretty obvious shortcoming. These get rendered in a non-editable file - which looks like monospaced courier, but doesn't make a space for each <spacebar>. Go figure.
Anyway, the workarounds are:
- Convert all your Notepad ANSI files to UTF-8 (open file in Notepad, Save As..., dropdown box -> choose UTF-8 and Save. (Save all new files as UTF-8). This is what I am doing.
- Open the file in Dropbox App. Select a word, then Select All. Copy. Create new file (Text). Paste into the window, name, and Create. Kinda klugy.
Those both work - I've tested.
- There is a way to change Notepad default to UTF-8, which would prevent this from re-occurring, but you have to touch the Registry (I don't want to do that)
- Download Notepad++ which apparently can set a default without touching the Registry (cannot verify). Reportedly Notepad++ takes less resources too (don't know about that either)
OK, a PITA. But do-able. I guess.
But, the real problem is Dropbox App cannot show text files (.txt) in monospaced font (e.g. Menlo or Courier). This is basically a disqualifier for Dropbox for musicians who use text files to create Tab, or Notation files, or chord charts. That's a lot of people left out in the cold. Since they all share files, so Dropbox could / should own this market, but have shut themselves out.
Definitely a pain in the arse, but what's new? The IT world is full of busybody software that most people don't want, and software that should be dead easy, but isn't. What is simpler than text files?
A couple of days ago, I put in the wrong passcode 2 or 3 times on my iPhone SE - it was poor light and I did not have my glasses. It said "iPhone disabled - try again in 5 minutes". Cut a long story short - it stayed like that - I phoned them and they erased all my iPhone data and reloaded it from iCloud. It only took an hour or so, on top of 1 day worrying about it . . . . . without telephone help, I doubt that I could have got it working again.
I am wondering whether I could manage without computers, again . . . .
Mike
Same issue here. I had an old version and was able to SEE my important .txt files. Now, with this edit crap, I CAN'T SEE the content of simple .txt files.
My files are all UTF-8. Tried BOM and no BOM, none work.
To the development team:
1. At least please test all unicode chars and tell us which ones wont work!
2. Also at least: if "file couldn't be open?" then fallback to viewer only.
This is an urgent issue!
Thanks!Update: Problem is Dropbox is trying to make sense of text files from the chars it finds, so it makes contraditory conclusions on some files and blocks. For instance, a text file with central european chars and ALSO chinese chars.
Anyway, your txt files may have got those chars from conversions to and from utf-8.
Quick fix (forcing those chars to be lost): create a new txt file in Windows 1250 format, copy paste the content from your UTF-8 file, and then copy the content back to the original file and save.
Not a real solution as you will lose any non Windows 1250 compatible chars.
