File Management on iPad
File Bookmarks on iPad
I've been of the bookmarks functionality in iOS and iPadOS but never understood how I could use them. That changed in two ways last weekend. I was working on a Python script to extract data from an Excel file. The Excel file is on OneDrive. I wanted the Python script to use a copy of the file given my paranoia about somehow messing up the file. It was simple to copy the file from the OneDrive location to where I had the python file on my MacBook Air. I was done and the script was working! Now I wanted it to run on my iPad Pro.
The iPad
I have been playing around with Pyto on my iPad Pro. Before writing the script I mentioned above I did some prototyping in Pyto. Like outputting the cell color so I knew what to look for to process certain rows. I copied the files into Pyto back then with my Mac. This time I didn't want to rely on that. The only thing I needed my Mac for now was to copy the file to Pyto's container. The Files app wouldn't let me copy the file from OneDrive to iCloud. I gave up.
I then searched on MacStories for bookmarks. I knew Federico had talked and written about them many times. I found his FS Bookmarks article from one of his Adapt challenges which mentioned Scriptable. His article somehow led me to Toolbox Pro which extends Shortcuts with additonal actions and including some for working with bookmarks. I created folder bookmarks for the OneDrive and Pyto locations. I now have a shortcut that will copy the file from OneDrive, prompt me for a filename, save it to Pyto, and then open Pyto. Yay!
I have one nitpick with Toolbox Pro. The Get Files From Bookmarked Folder action gets a file you specify from a folder bookmark. This is great since it bypasses needing a file picker; you can specify it in the action. My Excel file has a space and I have not been able to get the action to work with files with spaces. It works with files without spaces great. I tried enclosing the filename in single and double quotes, escaping the spaces with slashes, and using the url encoding scheme.
I realized I've been using bookmarks for a several months and had no idea. I have an interesting links page that I edit on my iPad using [Textastic}(https://www.textasticapp.com/). I've been using external folders in Textastic which I recently learned are folder bookmarks. Well, well. I was using Textastic with Shellfish and then Working Copy. Both work well. I switched to Working Copy because of version control. That is another story and maybe another post.
Final Thoughts
On a computer this type of operation is such a basic one. In the world of sandboxes the above operation requires non-system apps to accomplish. I get why this is a reality; iOS was originally designed to be locked down and is slowly being opened up. How widespread is the use of file and folder bookmarks? I suppose not very; I think it is more of a technical feature. The apps that I am aware of supporting bookmarks are:
- Working Copy - A Git client
- Scriptable - A javascript IDE
- Textastic - A text editor geared toward technical people
- Toolbox Pro - An extension of actions for Shortcuts
Those are not mainstream apps. Maybe there are more mainstream apps that support bookmarks. Even if there are, it's difficult to find apps by supported API. Not having widespread bookmarks support encourages the perception that the iPad isn't a computer. I don't think it should take an hour of research and trial and error to copy files. I also think it's confusing why files can be copied to some locations and not others. I am however glad I went through this exercise for the next time I need it.