[advantagemobile]

We at Advantage Mobile Ltd. have just launched a new application called Bramble which provides robust local and remote file and folder management, with a graphical and user-friendly Explorer-like native BlackBerry interface, allowing access to and management of files and folders both on the device and on remote sites over FTP(S) and WebDAV HTTP(S). The application is specifically engineered to provide the most robust file transfers possible even under poor and intermittent network conditions, and will resume file or folder transfers when interrupted for any reason wherever possible. We are currently trying to raise awareness of the product, which is currently selling on App World and all MobiHand powered stores. I hope this is an appropriate place to put some information about it. I have included some notes on some of the key features below, but the easiest way to find out what it can do is to give it a try. The application is available on a fully functional but time limited free trial basis, and you can download a free trial Bramble - Productivity BlackBerry Apps - Crackberry BlackBerry Apps Store. If anyone feels that the product may be of use them, please feel free to give it a try. As we are a new business with a new product, any constructive feedback would be gratefully accepted. Thank you. Advantage Mobile.

Bramble - BlackBerry Local & Remote File Explorer

- Full access to your important files & folders wherever you go. Never forget to take that key document with you again. Download your photographs and music from your home network while away. Upload your expense claim form before you even get home.

- Simple, intuitive and graphical explorer tree-style interface (see screen shots). Simple network connections can be configured knowing no more than the URL and a user name and password, with more advanced configuration options available if required.

- Manage files, folders, ZIP archives, images, music on built-in storage, media cards, your favourite cloud storage accounts, business networks and your home computer from wherever you are.

- Cut, copy, paste, create, rename, delete, download, upload, open, ZIP and email single documents, multiple selections or even whole folder structures in the same way, wherever they are stored. Unlimited file and folder sizes for both uploads and downloads.

- Use ZIP archives as compressed folders, adding deleting and renaming files and folders on the fly. Open local and remote files directly in their native applications. Built in text editor provided for small text files. Thumbnail previews of local images, even within ZIP archives. Play music files or whole folders in sequence or shuffled. Set local or remote images as the desktop wallpaper.

- Read and write access via FTP or WebDAV (web shares or web folders) over WiFi, direct mobile TCP/IP, BES/MDA (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) and WAP 2.0 connections, seamlessly roaming between available networks even during transfers. Connection types configurable to suit your mobile data plan and tariff.

- Works with a wide range of Windows, Linux, UNIX and other FTP and HTTP servers, including many freely available home FTP packages. Uses firewall-friendly passive mode for FTP (WebDAV passes through firewalls just like any other web server traffic). Full support for Unicode file names and case sensitive/insensitive file systems. Support for anonymous guest logons and secure browsing and transfers, using FTPS (implicit) and HTTPS for WebDAV with basic and MD5 digest authentication.

- Robust, reliable and resumable downloads and uploads (where supported) survive poor signal coverage, prolonged loss of network connection, even server outages and restarts. Ideal for downloading whilst on a train or as a passenger in a car.

- Supports BlackBerry devices from the 8100 Pearl series (BlackBerry Device Software 4.3.0) to the latest 9800 touchscreen Torch (BlackBerry Device Software 6.0.0) and beyond.

- Fully functional time-limited free trial. Try and buy.

[trucky]

Here's a link:

Bramble - Productivity BlackBerry Apps - Crackberry BlackBerry Apps Store

(not affiliated with advantage-mobile, just tossing up the link...)

[advantagemobile]

Thank you very much!

[ba_hamilton]

I'll try it out but I've already got FileManagerPro and FileScout. I'll see how this compares.

[advantagemobile]

Thank you, please do give it a try. As far as I know the other tools you mention only let you manage files on the device. Our tool will link up to ftp sites and web folders too and let you manage files and folders on them just as though they were local, including uploads and downloads. I guess all the different tools were designed with slightly different purposes in mind and all have their strengths as well as weaknesses. Please let me know what you think of ours.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[SCrid2000]

One thing I noticed right off the bat: trackball click opens a menu rather than expanding a folder. I can't speak for everyone, but I would Much prefer trackpad click expanded the subfolders
Also, it seems like it opens the registration dialouge every time the app is open. Since it seems that the registration is tied to a server (good call there), that could be inconvenient if you didn't have service.
Overall tho, very nice app.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[advantagemobile]

@SCrid2000:

Thanks for the feedback. It's so hard to actually get information from people who download and test the application and good positive feeback is the only way I'm going to be able to get the bottom of any problems and imporove the app.

Regarding your first point: Early versions did indeed use the "click to expand" model but for some reason I changed it. I'm struggling to remember exactly why, but I think I had problems getting a consistent feel to the user interface on touchscreen models like the Storm and Torch. I will however take your comments on board and look at it again. I have a Bold and a Torch to hand so I can test any changes with and without touchscreen.

Regarding you second point: It certainly SHOULDN'T display the dialog every time, and on all the devices I've tested it on it doesn't, although I must admit looking at the licence server logs there enough instances of people downloading their keys multiple times to suggest that there is a fairly common problem out there which I am just not seeing for some reason. Any help you can give me in tracking this down would be appreciated, although the best I can offer in return would be a free licence key!

What should happen is that the dialog should only be displayed where they key is not valid, so for example when the application first runs it will have no key and should prompt, but without you keying anything it should be able to get a free trial key from the server and once you click OK this should be persisted in the same encoded data block used to store the Options. You should not therefore see the dialog again until the key has expired, at which point you will need a full licence key to proceed, although once again if you have already purchased a key from App World or elsewhere, it should get it from our server without keying. After that you shouldn't see the dialog ever again. Other than requesting a new key, you should therefore be able to run the application with or without service.

Can I ask you to check a couple of things for me:

1) When connecting to an FTP/WebDAV site it should prompt you for permission to use a particular network (WAP/TCP/WiFi). You should only ever see this prompt ONCE for each network type. I'm wondering if these prompts too are being displayed each time you close and re-open the app too?

2) If you go into Options | Edit and change some setting (any, e.g. Show Hidden Files) then close the application right down with Close | OK and re-open it, has the change been saved correctly?

Just one more question, and this one is non-technical: When you tried the application, was the fact that it was a full FTP/WebDAV client obvious to you? I've had a number of comments from people who seem to be comparing it directly with apps like FileManagerPro and FileScout and my whole reason for developing this app was to address a need which they did not have covered (I already had these apps myself).

Thanks

Andrew
Advantage Mobile

[advantagemobile]

@SCrid2000: One other question if I may ... Could you let me know the PIN for the device that was prompting for a key every time. I can then have a look at the logs on the key server for that PIN and try to see if there was some reason why it might be invalidating the key. Thanks.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[SCrid2000]

Yeah, pin is 320fea62.
It only displayed the registration dialogue three times, I only opened Bramble three times lol.
I'll do all that stuff this afternoon and get back to you (or earlier, depending on how boring this mandatory meeting I have is ).

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[ba_hamilton]

my trial version stopped working. When I tried to reinstall it the 'OK' button won't highlight when the key code pops up. I can only cancel out of the program. It won't let me register the app again is what I'm trying to say LOL.

My comments after working with it for 24 hours.

-It was not obvious to me when I first opened up the app that it had FTP abilities. I was going to try to FTP files, download, upload, edit, to my own website but did not have the chance to try that feature out before the app stopped working.

-The UI is nice. I expected the directories to expand when i highlighted and clicked on them. Instead the BB window pops up and you have to chose expand from there. That's OK but it looks like the directories should expand automatically when you click on them.

-File transfers, copy/paste, zip, was easy to perform. Very user friendly I think.

I would like to try the FTP capabilities. That is the one thing that makes your app stand out from the rest.

[advantagemobile]

Thanks, I've a peep at the logs and every key request from you was identical, so nothing is changing and the device must be just "forgetting" the key somehow. It does look like lots of people have had the same issue from the logs. Are you on a BES by any chance? All my testing on actual devices has been BIS so just wondering if there could be something in your IT Policy which might be stopping my access to the PersistentStore. Meanwhile ... Enjoy your meeting while I'm chilling out in the sun in a park with my baby daughter

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[advantagemobile]

@ba-hamilton:

I'm guessing when the OK button won't light up the big title across the top of the window says "Free Trial Expired"? If so, that's the problem! Let me have your PIN and I'll wipe your records off our database and give you another few days to play.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[ba_hamilton]

@ba-hamilton:

I'm guessing when the OK button won't light up the big title across the top of the window says "Free Trial Expired"? If so, that's the problem! Let me have your PIN and I'll wipe your records off our database and give you another few days to play.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Ok. Thanks. PIN is in signature.

[advantagemobile]

@ba_hamilton: Done. Should get a new free trial key next time you open it.

[SCrid2000]

Oops, wrong thread. Test review is coming here tho
Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[SCrid2000]

Thanks, I've a peep at the logs and every key request from you was identical, so nothing is changing and the device must be just "forgetting" the key somehow. It does look like lots of people have had the same issue from the logs. Are you on a BES by any chance? All my testing on actual devices has been BIS so just wondering if there could be something in your IT Policy which might be stopping my access to the PersistentStore. Meanwhile ... Enjoy your meeting while I'm chilling out in the sun in a park with my baby daughter

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Woah now, that's cold fwiw, after I got out of that meeting my wife and I went for a walk around historic downtown, then played with fancy electronic toys at staples, then had dinner at Wingers
I couldn't check anything in Bramble cuz it's given me a "free trial stopped" error now.
Oh also, here's a weird bug for you: I uninstalled it by hitting delete from the homescreen, but it didn't fully delete the app even after a few battery pulls. I'm assuming it just deleted the module related to the homescreen/filebrowser, and not every module.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[CoachMyVideo.com]

I just downloaded the app - thanks for the free trial!

I just want one thing: to upload a video from my Blackberry over the air. The 2.9 MB limit with email is just too low. I was able to log into my FTP site, but I don't see an option for upload. Your documentation mentions picture uploads.

Would love to hear it if I missed that capability; otherwise that's my feedback.

Thanks,
Jason

[advantagemobile]

@SCrid2000 @ba_hamilton:

I've uploaded a new release version 2.106 to our website. It's not yet available on App World or MobiHand so in the meantime you will need to get it from the download links on www{dot}advantage-mobile{dot}co{dot}uk.

This release takes into account your comments on single-click expanding and collapsing folders. I've also taken out the network usage confirmation prompts for really trivial data transfers such as licence keys and update checks, as I think these were just confusing some users, who were clicking no and then wondering why it wouldn't fetch a key from our server. I've also fixed another small bug which caused it to re-check the key on our server when you put the application into the background (it was supposed to detect switching to foreground and to check the key again in case the user had toggled out to App World and purchased a key in the meantime).

As far as I know, that just leaves the bug that seems to be causing it lose the key and possibly some other settings on some devices. I'm sure this is easily fixable once I can identify the cause, but it's not happening on any of our devices here, so I'm still hoping for a bit of assistance in tracking it down from you guys please. I can only guess its a BES vs. BIS difference or a CDMA vs GSM difference (I know RIM use completely different internal chipsets for devices using different network technologies and these sometimes surface other unexpected differences in behaviour in unrelated areas).

For anyone interested, the reason I originally went with displaying a menu on clicking on a folder were twofold:

i) This is the default behaviour of the RIM TreeField class that I used. I don't like fighting against the built-in UI unless there is a good reason as it can get complicated and cause unexpected behaviour, but I guess two out of two reviews asking for the same change is a good enough reason!

ii) There is a design problem with the touch screen APIs on Storm and Storm II running OS 4.7.0 to 5.0.0 (which seems to have been sorted out on the Torch on OS 6.0.0). When dragging the screen to scroll the display vertically, the OS still generates all of the events you would get from a click without dragging, which means there is no clear way to distinguish between a straightforward click and a drag. The result is that when you drag to scroll and release, whatever action is assigned to clicking then occurs immediately afterwards. To be honest it's not nice popping up the menu at this point (the user wouldn't expect anything at all to happen) but it's the best I can do. If it starts expanding and collapsing nodes every time you drag it gets VERY confusing for the user, so I avoided it. For this reason in the latest release I have left the touch event stuff alone and differentiated between a "click" coming from the touchscreen (which displays a context menu) or from the trackwheel/ball/pad (which expands or collapses where there are child nodes, otherwise displays the context menu as before).

I think the new UI works a lot better and I'm very grateful for the feedback. Please keep it coming! I've done my personal best with the UI but the only way I'll really be able to fine tune it to what the users really want is by listening to what they have to say.

Thanks and have a good Easter.

[advantagemobile]

@SCrid2000: I've deleted your PIN from our database. You can have another free trial now

[advantagemobile]

@Jason:

Yeah of course it supports video upload, and without any limits on size!

It treats all uploads and downloads just the same as a copy and paste between folders on the device, so all you need to do is:

i) Browse to find the video files you want to upload. If it's just one file you want to upload, select "Video File" | "Copy" from the menu (which should mark it with a blue dot to indicate it is copied to the clipboard). If you want to do several at once from the same folder, click the space bar to select the files (displaying a green tick) or even hold space down and scroll using the trackball to select a few, then select "Selection" | "Copy" from the menu to copy them all.

ii) Browse to the folder on the FTP site where you want to upload them to and select "Paste (Into Folder)".

That's all there is to it! For your information it treats ZIPing and UNZIPing in the same way, i.e. it treats ZIP archives as compressed folders, so to ZIP something, create a new empty ZIP archive then copy/cut and paste files into it. To unzip, simply copy/cut and paste them out into a normal folder.

Please accept my apologies for the fact that the help site isn't yet very comprehensive. I am still working on it and will keep adding more information as I can. Please let me have any suggested areas you might like to see covered as a priority.

Thanks for trying and I hope it works for you.

[advantagemobile]

@SCrid2000: Glad you had a good day after all! The module deletion thing is a bit strange, never seen that before. It does install two modules, "Bramble" and "BrambleGateway". It's all part of a bit of cunning that means I can completely avoid the "Split Pipe" issue. The application is quite happy to make both public and private connections simultaneously even on devices with the "Split Pipe" ITPolicy restriction. The install/uninstall process is not something I have control of, it's down the BlackBerry AMS. I have seen it do other funny things occasionally. FYI: There should be no need to remove it before installing the new free trial I've set up for you, and uninstalling won't get you around the free expiry anyway, it's all server-controlled. I'd recommend you just download the new 2.106 version from our website (see my earlier post) over the top of what you've already got.

[SCrid2000]

Lol, I always delete apps as part of my testing routine.
I'll download the new version and see how it goes.

[ba_hamilton]

Been using this for a couple of days now. The FTP abilities of this app are awesome. It is easy and fast to log in to FTP sites and it saves the login information so you don't have to enter it each time. It's easy to download and upload files.

Don't worry about the click to expand directories. It's no problem expanding the directory in the BB popup window.

I like that you have the option to completely close out of the app so thats its not sitting in the App Switcher menu all the time.

[SCrid2000]

The new version from your site fixed both issues
The trial serial is staying active now, even if I pull the battery out for 30 seconds.
Also, clicking the trackpad expands folders on the first click rather than the second.
Well done.

[ba_hamilton]

A couple of comments. I may have mis-understood what you were saying about the single click to expand/contract folders. I installed the new version and the single click to expand file folders still does not work. The BB menu still pops up and the option to expand the menu is in there. It may by an OS thing. I'm still on OS5. No 6.0 love for us Storm 2 users.

I have about 1000 images in my picture folder. I like how Bramble loads all the images into memory before it shows them. The progress bar is nice and it really is a fast process. Once everything is loaded up I can scroll through the folder with hardly any hesitation at all. One thing - The preview image is so tiny you can hardly make out what the image is. Any chance of making the preview image a little larger?