Problem

Is there any way to exclude certain folders with pictures in them to be displayed by the photos app? It seems that the usual "flag" via an empty .nomedia file for that purpose is not honored (which is an Android standard followed by all other photo viewers that I'm aware of).

Proposal

It would be nice if there were a way to exclude the contents of certain folders, wherever they live in the file system:

• At least the consideration of .nomedia files should be implemented.

• As an superior alternative (in my opinion) there could be a blacklist feature. See below for more details on this. It would represent the more flexible and powerful option.

Reasoning

• The photos app would be easier and clearer to use because only the intended images are shown.

• Other images on the phone (e.g. resources like icons, support pictures etc. of other apps) could be hidden as they are not relevant.

Realization idea

Some ideas for a possible blacklist functionality:

• For a really comfortable approach have a look at the gallery app of the Simple Mobile Tools (see Simple Gallery)

• When one tries to exclude a directory like /a/b/c/d in that app, it suggests as alternatives also the parent folders within that hierarchy (i.e., /a/b/c, /a/band /a).

• Usually these higher levels are all reasonable candidates for the blacklist and often are what the user actually needs (so he does not have to exclude several directories in parallel like /a/b/c/e, /a/b/c/f and so on for the example above…)

• A blacklist feature would of course need the user to be able to maintain its contents later (by adding, modifying or deleting individual or all entries) but at the same time offer a powerful finetuning.

Remarks

• The very same (.nomedia consideration and/or blacklist) should be implemented for the Videos app.

• A third option would be an explicit whitelist (with its entries added by the same clever logic as described above), but I'd suggest to refrain from this as it would be too complex.

  • For example this would require an initial setup by adding at least the root folder of all memory devices present in the phone in order to show all pictures (like it is the default today).
  • This definitely cannot be expected to be performed by the users which represent the typical target group of BaldPhone.

Thanks for considering this suggestion!

Together with ability to display pictures folder based (see issue #264) this exclusion functionality would satisfy all my (respectively the intended user's) needs for the photo app.