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Forum Discussion
Ipad and Iphone viewing of long file names
Our company is having the issue that on the mobile app (using the ipad or iphone) often times the file name is too long to properly view what we are opening. I want to be able to read the entire file name so I know what i am opening since many of the beginning and last parts of the file are exactly the same for filing purposes so I want to be able to view the file name without having to open each one in order to find out. I'm hoping I make sense. Is there something I'm missing where I'm able to do this? I can't "right click" on the file name cause I'm mobile otherwise I would try that 🙂
Well, bugger me, Dropbox has finally fixed this with the latest update. I thought to re-check this today after the latest change, and straight away could see the filenames are displayed differently. The font is smaller, and the filename is truncated in the middle, so I can read the start of the file name, but also the end which is (with my file-naming convention), typically the differentiator. But the kicker is what happens with the display pane. It is now possible to close that — there’s a small “x” in the top left corner of the display/preview pane — and once that closes, the left pane with the file names expands to full screen view! And voila! I can now see the full long file names. Dropbox: THAT is the way to take advantage of the larger screen on an iPad, especially the 12.9” model. I’m still annoyed it took so long to remedy, but thank you for finally doing it.
Again agree with Elizabeth!!! This needs to change soon!
BruceDropbox Staff
Thanks Elizabeth, Shawn and everyone else for this feedback! Will be sure the team sees this as we look at improving the experience on iPads, and viewing files in general.
It would be fantastic if there were an option to turn of the auto preview, thereby providing more space for file names etc.
Clicking on arrows next to every file name is not a good solution! This is very time consuming and frustrating. Sometimes I switch to my android phone just so I can hold it in landscape and actually read the file names. Drop box is now almost unusable on my iPad. Please give us a full width list view.
No ability to read complete file names with ipad is a huge dysfunction and has been for years. It's so wrong that it's almost as if no decison-maker at DB has ever looked with his or her own eyes at listing of multiple file names on an Ipad. Their solution - to look at the details of every single file just to get at the name, even when that list may be dozens or hundreds of files long - is so out-of-touch with the real world that it just boggles the mind. These kids coding away in their cublicles seem to have no concept of business requirements in the real world. It's crazy, considering how good Dropbox is in most other ways. This issue has been raised again and again for years and years, and despite happy assurances that it will get addressed, it never has and almost certainly never will. DB rarely listened to customer feedback in the early days, and now, as a behemoth, it never does. So either learn to live with it, or move on to an alternate cloud solution that addresses this need. There are quite a few.
The crazy thing is, that dropbox on the iPhone shows long filenames in landscape mode, but at the iPad it seems to be incredible complicated to make this basic and simple function work.
MariedbHi there!
Thanks for your feedback about Dropbox on iPad. With the newest release of Dropbox, you should see a downward arrow that will show you the entire file name.
We are aware of the issue with truncated file names and we are working towards a solution to this.
Thanks again for passing it along and let me know if there's anything else I can do for you!
Marie, as stated above numerous times the drop down menu is useless when you need to quickly view 100 files and find the right one. We know it's there now get on to actually coming out with a version that actually fixes this problem!!!! Or our business too will be forced to change to another cloud!!'
Dropbox's response (press a downward arrow for each file) to this fundamental issue is utterly inadequate. Not being able to see full-length filenames in the menu is a deal-breaker and I have started using another cloud service because of it.
What's even more bizarre is that if you change the font size in the IPad settings it only remembers the new size setting until you leave that folder and then it goes back to being too large again.
