Feature Requests

[electr1fy0]

1. Bidirectional transfer support. (By dragging file/files to the Menu Bar icon.
2. Ability to share text that gets saved to the clipboard on the other device.
3. Ability to function on Hostpot.

[CanYumusak]

Hey! Thanks for this! My 2 cents:

Bidirectional Transfer

This makes total sense but would require a background service running at all times on the Android phones. Android disallows background services without showing a persistent notification, which is a huge bummer since people dislike having notifications which do not go away. There are essentially 3 thoughts here:

Force Users to open the AnDrop app to receive Text & Files

This is a little uncomfortable since people need to do more than one click. This is an okay solution.

Let Users Opt-In and ask them to hide the notification (although AnDrop is running in the background at all times)

This is a solution a lot of apps choose but requires the user to navigate into settings and change stuff. Might be okay if the user opts in to Mac -> Android transfers and force the user to open the app if they haven't opted in.

Use Android "Nearby" API to start AnDrop as soon as the phone is near a computer that AnDrop is paired with

This is kinda the most elegant way and we could still allow people to hide the notification near paired computers.

Clipboard sharing

Technically this is an easy one but would require a persistent connection between both the computer and the phone which opens up the same issues as [Bidirectional Transfer]. So if that is solved, this is also solved.

Abitility to function on Hotspot

Finally an easy one! Will look into it, thanks

[electr1fy0]

There's Soduto (https://github.com/sannidhyaroy/Soduto/tree/nightly) on macOS which, allows these functionalities but is based on very old and officially abandoned code.
The connection to KDE Connect on Android uses a persistent notification.
It's finicky to reconnect at times and possibly kills my Idle drain but I figure referencing it might help a bit.

Using Nearby API to start the app sounds like a really cool idea!
I wonder how hard it is to implement it though.
Running a persistent notification just transfers the effort to the battery if the app has to be running all the time (looks at KDE Connect).
Both of these methods are better than manual launch though.

Also,

1. As Android doesn't allow apps to read the clipboard automatically (without reading logs using ADB provided permission), I don't think it's worth it to have automatic clipboard syncing.
   On macOS, a drag and drop of text to the Menu Bar icon should be good enough.
   On Android, especially now that there's a clipboard popup on A13 with a Share button, it's a non-issue to share text.
2. Shared Links with text should either open automatically in the default browser or present a notification allowing to do so. This might involve having to trim down the extra context that shared links usually come with.

So, as far as I can see the major effort lies in getting bidirectional transfer and persistent connection using Nearby to work.
I'm looking forward to Androp for the minimalist, platform native UI and usage of newer, more efficient APIs.

[CanYumusak]

Thanks so much for engaging in this. I'm always happy that people are using (and happy about) AnDrop. Requests like yours motivate me to work on AnDrop more. Currently I'm reworking the landing page, since I think my old landing page that I wrote in half an hour turns off people. Also I suspect that a lot of folks just don't understand how AnDrop works.
I do know KDE Connect and honestly it's existance has been one source of hesitancy to put more work into AnDrop: "Just use KDE Connect lol". However I do agree with your concerns.

Text Support

This is actually a thing that I had in my mind since forever and never worked on it. I definitely should. Transfering text and URLs is an extremely common use-case.

I forgot to mention the (probably) coolest way to resolve the issue I outlined above: Push Notifications. Sending a file could resolve in a push notification which is sent to AnDrop on the phone and thus waking up the service. I'd need to research a little bit to make sure the experience is good. You may need a pairing step to do this, also the main claim "AnDrop is without a backend and works without an internet connection" would be gone.

[electr1fy0]

About the notification method to wake up the service,
The pairing steps aren't a concern as it's a one time job.
The backend...could be. I wonder how reliably it's gonna work so that's something that we'll have to see play out.

I do understand the hesitation to work on it due to the existence of KDE Connect but I consider it a different app given it wants to stay permanently connected and also keeps running when not connected.

I liked the AnDrop execution that it only stays connected during active usage.
There's also that KDE keeps trying to read my clipboard each time without any way to disable the behaviour despite Android persisting to block it each time by default.
I am also a bit of paranoid of CPU/Battery usage so my OCD kinda triggers by just having KDE Connect installed lol.

You're not making a KDE Connect clone, it's different enough to justify its existence imo.
Also, I don't think KDE Connect is being actively developed anymore. I had to update it to Material 3 and change the device selection page to a dialog box myself after months of asking them to do it, lol.
I also don't see any native Mac app from them anytime soon, if ever. Soduto is officially dead, there's only so much that forks can do about it.

I don't know if you plan to actively work on AnDrop given there's not many users for this kind of app but I really appreciate the existence of this project.