Explicitly warn that "Media read-only" will also lead to the GPS Location tags loss from all pictures!

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
68/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
android, kotlin
Domain
mobile

Research direction

Start in app/src/main/res/values/strings.xml at the permission prompt around line 1098, then inspect the Android client onboarding flow that displays it. Update the prompt so it explicitly warns that choosing Media read-only can remove GPS/Location tags before picture backup; done means the warning is shown in that choice flow and accurately reflects the reported behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

enhancement hotspot: metadata
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Upon installing the android client, user is asked whether they'd like to grant "Media read-only" or "Full access"

https://github.com/nextcloud/android/blob/0a98a95f98e42142e434470dc930d9bc1b390449/app/src/main/res/values/strings.xml#L1098

However, the question is extremely misleading, as it is not mentioned that choosing what seems as a safe value if one only wants to sync pictures ("Media read-only") it will lead to silent data loss by system removing Location/GPS tags from all pictures before they're backed up on Nextcloud server!

see e.g. https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/6248#issuecomment-1843178111 and all the data loss problems people are having.

Describe the solution you'd like

Explicitly warn the users that choosing "Read-only" will lead to permanent loss of Location tags from all the pictures that are "backup up" to the Nextcloud server.

Describe alternatives you've considered

  • Nextcloud client could alternatively perhaps always request location permission, so GPS Location EXIF tags won't get stripped. For example, I can share pictures to Wikimedia Commons app without GPS location being lost, so perhaps similar solution could work for Nextcloud client too.

  • Or, nextcloud client could explicitly ask users if they'd like to preserve Location tags on their pictures, and if so, refuse to proceed unless required permissions are granted or the users chooses they don't want Location preserved afterall.

Dominant language
Kotlin
Stars
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Forks
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Merged PRs (30d)
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