ADB Content Plugin

[brahman]

We have beautiful file system plugins for ADB which allow me to see my android apps with version number, real name, etc. when I access my android via ADB.

But unfortunately same thing cannot be done with my apk backup files on my PC.

It would be nice to have an apk content plugin or built-in TC functionality to accomplish this.

[milo1012]

It wouldn't be a problem to code a simple plugin,
you'd just need to shell-execute aapt.exe (or maybe apktool) for dumping the embedded XML Manifest (see here),
parse it for the info you want and return the strings in the appropriate fields to TC.

But this would also mean you'd have to redistribute the aapt.exe program and keep it updated (to read possible new Android formats).
Not sure if the license would allow it. If someone knows some details about this, please let me know.

[brahman]

Well that would give me hope to someday see such a useful plugin.

Thanks for your feedback.

[ZoSTeR]

You could try APK-Info.

[brahman]

Thanks for your suggestion.

I checked APK-Info (and APK-Spy), and they are great for working with single (or very few) apk files.

But both of them are not really suitable for easily working with lots of APK files.

For that a content plugin would be ideal.

[milo1012]

Alright, I got some time and a plugin available here.
(32+64bit+source
SHA1 ec55732cde1b8649d364d4aa75e1c369adf761f4)

It basically mimics APK-Info for now.

Not beta, but still not that much tested.
It calls aapt.exe in a child process, the output is parsed with PCRE subsequently,
so don't expect best performance.

Please report bugs and give me some feedback.

[ZoSTeR]

@milo1012
Just tested the plugin with ~100 APKs and the only problem I found is with Unicode characters (APK-Info has the same issue).

e.g Éternel becomes Éternel

[brahman]

Cool, thanks for that.

Haven't downloaded it coz the hoster wants me to execute a downloader on my PC.

Could u upload it to mediafire or some other reputable hoster that doesn't want me to register or execute a file of theirs to download the plugin?

Or maybe totalcmd.net?

[milo1012]

Éternel becomes Éternel

What field is this? The App name?
That's the point I couldn't test, because naming conventions virtually forbid non-ASCII characters (see e.g. here).
All Apps on my disk are in the ASCII-range.

If you know an App with such characters that I can download for free, I may be able to adapt the plugin for Unicode.

[milo1012]

Haven't downloaded it coz the hoster wants me to execute a downloader on my PC....
Or maybe totalcmd.net?

You need to use the link directly below the comment field. If it doesn't appear, try a different browser.

I don't have access to totalcmd.net, but if someone with an account is willing to upload it there, you're welcome.

[brahman]

OK, I have it now.

Thank you very much.

But before I clicked on the bigger more prominent download link.

Fortunately, I executed the downloaded APK-wdx.rar.exe in a Sandbox, otherwise I now would have several malware programs on my PC and homepages etc changed.

My Antivirus went completely bongo.

A less experienced user would now be competely messed up.

Let's try to keep this board clean and not use problematic file-hosters like that that could be a danger to other users.

For this reason, it would be good if the link would be removed by you or the moderators.

[milo1012]

Look, I understand the problem, but this has nothing to do with this Forum.
If you never had to deal with a free one-click file hoster, than it's more of a general problem of your own.
There are tons of links to different file hosters in this forum, all having some banners and links to non-related locations and downloads.
You can already prevent most of these links with a very basic ad blocker.

Ten or 15 years ago I'd need to have some private Homepage and host it myself, literally paying for the traffic out of my own pocket.
If you don't know what you're doing when clicking on some ambiguous banners, you probably shouldn't go there in the first place, since it's clear that it's not on the official TC homepage any more.
So, I won't discuss this further.
But I'll see if I can find some other hosting possibility.

[Dalai]

[OT]

2brahman
On the one hand you have a point there. On the other hand I strongly recommend to use Adblock (or similar ad-blocking technology) to prevent something like this. I'm using Adblock and I just see one download link and that one doesn't try to offer any crap. All file-hosters are subject to change sooner or later, not for the better in most cases. So, in essence, it doesn't matter which hoster is used because they all could spread malware or similar crap, sooner or later.

Sorry for Offtopic.

A translator of my Services2 plugin recommended http://ge.tt. Don't know if there are similar issues.

[/OT]

Regards
Dalai

[brahman]

The plugin works superbly and is exactly what the doctor ordered. Thank you for your great work.

I hope you don't mind that I have uploaded it to mediafire here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/7t2otc2e88tt137/APK-wdx.rar

so forum visitors can download it safely.

[ZoSTeR]

This is the unicode/utf-8 output from aapt.exe piped to a text file (save as out.b64). Hope it helps.
"type unicode-label.txt" shows the exact same result in cmd.

Code: Select all

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name="unicode-label.txt"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="unicode-label.txt"

YXBwbGljYXRpb24tbGFiZWw6J8OJdGVybmVsJw==