Add support for Google Drive synchronization

[angrybacon]

Let's keep #24 for Git-related discussion.

[guntamania]

Is there somebody struggling for this feature?
I am investigating Google Drive apis and this repository and would like to share ideas if somebody is working for this.

[c-okelly]

I would be interested in working on it as well! I don't think there is currently a timeline on it and I would very much like the feature!

[rafaelleru]

I'm interested in work on this, any help about where to start looking? I mean some classes or packages that can be candidates to modify

[nevenz]

Service-side - new class is needed implementing Repo interface
UI-side - new fragment is needed to display directory/auth view

Those are tied together in ReposActivity and RepoFactory.

Checking existing DropboxRepo and DirectoryRepo is probably a good start.

(There's a lot of room to DRY things up, as this is all very similar. But I wouldn't worry about that right now if you're just starting - copying what DropboxRepo does and how is used is fine.)

[relan]

Note that com.google.android.gms:play-services-drive is proprietary software. If it becomes a mandatory dependency, Orgzly won't be updated on F-Droid.

[rafaelleru]

I will keep it in mind @relan and try to find a way to solve this problem.

[rafaelleru]

Also I like to try to add nextcloud/ownclud integration appart from google drive. What do you think?

[klapauciusisgreat]

@relan: isn't the dropbox integration proprietary as well ? Why is integration with drive separate ?

If the issue is that this uses a specific android API not available on F-droid, could the app not use the regular web API (https://developers.google.com/drive/v2/reference/) ? I haven't written any Android apps, so perhaps this is a naïve question, and the app would have to use the android API But my understanding is that the user would just have to go through a separate OAuth flow to connect via the web API.

[relan]

isn't the dropbox integration proprietary as well ?

Dropbox SDK is free software (MIT license), see https://github.com/dropbox/dropbox-sdk-java

Why is integration with drive separate ?

Well, because Google decided to make com.google.android.gms:play-services-drive library non-free.

Can't answer your other questions, I never reasearched Google's APIs.

[groks]

Orgzly could use the Storage Access Framework (since Android 4.4) client API. Any SAF provider - such as Google Drive, Dropbox, OwnCloud #28, SD Card etc. - would then be available through one common interface.

[gaborbit]

+1 Google Drive, NextCloud

[stuart12]

Please add support for the Storage Access Framework so that we can sync to Nextcloud. Nextcloud now has an end-to-end encryption as an App so we get client side encrypted sync for free. At the moment I cannot sync to Nextcloud at all.

[nevenz]

Orgzly could use the Storage Access Framework (since Android 4.4) client API. Any SAF provider - such as Google Drive, Dropbox, OwnCloud #28, SD Card etc. - would then be available through one common interface.

It already does - Orgzly uses ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE for "Directory" repo type. It's what opens the system browser.

However, support for that intent doesn't seem to be too popular with the providers. See for example nextcloud/android#303. Google Drive and Dropbox don't support it either.