USB backend

[Albert Vaca]

Users should not have debugging enabled on their phones, so the ADB
approach doesn't seem a good option. I have no idea about what you can do
with the Android accessories API, but it sounds better even if old phones
are not supported. Can you implement whatever protocol you like on top of
that API? Basically what we need is to open a socket between the PC and the
device. Do you think it can do that?

And something related: right now when you connect your phone through USB,
we are not smart enough to know that the phone connected by USB and the
phone connected by KDE Connect are the same phone, and Dolphin displays it
twice. That is: you end up with two interfaces to send files, one that
works through MTP and another through KDE Connect. I think that's a bad
user experience and we should get to a point where we are able to show the
phone only once in Dolphin, and when the user wants to send a file we use
the better communication channel we have available (probably MTP). For me,
this would be the final goal for USB integration in KDE Connect :)



On Sat, Jul 25, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Floris Stoica-Marcu <floris.sm at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> So I've recently been experimenting with some USB connection methods for
> Android. I would like your opinion on what is best to implement for KDE
> Connect. I found two ways that could work, each with their own advantages
> and disadvantages:
>
> 1. An USB backend through adb ( would require the user to have it
> installed, but will work on most Android versions) [0]
> 2. An USB backend that takes advantage of the whole Android accessory API.
> Writing the PC stuff in libusb it is possible to essentially turn the whole
> computer into an Android accessory, that can transfer bytes and whatnot to
> and from the Android device. ( will work only on newer versions of Android,
> but the user will not have to install anything extra ) [1]
>
> Quick note on the method through adb, it also requires to have the device
> in usb-debugging mode. There is also the method of the custom usb driver,
> but I determined it to be far too fidgety (especially if you already have
> some drivers intalled).
>
> I will attach some resources on the topics:
> [0] http://qtcstation.com/2011/03/connecting-android-to-the-pc-over-usb/
> [1] http://source.android.com/accessories/custom.html
>
> What method would be the most convenient for KDE connect?
>
> Floris.
> --
> Stoica-Marcu "FlowRiser" Floris-Andrei
> floris.sm at gmail.com
>
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