TL;DR - Can’t use Git. Need to deploy static websites to the web. Can only use an android phone. I use Netlify on computer but dragging and dropping sites on phone doesn’t work. What are my options?
I am a teacher who is teaching basic web development to kids and I have been using Netlify to help kids deploy their work to the web. It has been going well so far but after lockdown, kids are doing this remotely and a lot of my kids are poor and don’t have computers at home. So they are learning to do everything on their smartphones. I’ve been able to find alternatives for most stuff to help them still learn it on the phone, but for site deployment using Netlify, I’ve found that dragging and dropping folders doesn’t work on an android phone.
I wish you guys had an option to click on a “Choose Folder” button and then allow the folder to be uploaded from the phone.
Is there a way to do this on the phone? I would prefer to keep using Netlify, but if this doesn’t work, what are my alternatives?
Hi, @ryarasi, the closest thing I could find to an answer is this:
However, if people don’t have a computer I wouldn’t expect them to have extra bluetooth mice laying around to pair with their phones.
We do have an open feature request for an upload button. I’ve have cross-linked this community topic to the feature request for tracking. If/when this becomes possible, we’ll post an update here to let you know.
There are no other workarounds that I’m aware of. I wish there was a workaround as teaching web development (or any computer programming) to kids is a most honorable endeavor. If there are other questions about this, please let us know.
Hi @luke, thanks for your response. The stackexchange link you shared probably won’t work because I’m looking for ways to drag files from the files app to the browser. And even if it did work through some workaround, most of my kids are 12-14 yrs old and they wouldn’t be able to follow along. The reason why I chose Netlify was the simplicity of the whole thing and so far I’ve worked with it successfully to teach many kids how to publish their sites for free.
I’ve tried lookin for alternatives for Netlify, and to my surprise can’t find any. A few years ago there was something called Bitballoon but that seems to have been bought by Netlify.
I wish there was a simple alternative to this feature of deploying static HTML pages onto the web.
The simplest option would be to have the “Choose Files” button. I was going to raise a feature request here.
If I’m reading this right, you have already created a feature request for this? I would appreciate it if you could share a link to it, so that I can have a look.
hi there, just to be really clear - bitballoon IS netlify, that was the company’s first name! And the functionality we offered then (uploading a folder) still exists today and is called Netlify Drop.
Dragging and dropping a folder is the simplest way, but, i am not 100% sure that works on mobile devices.
One thing you could possible try is to “view page in desktop mode” and see if that allows dragging and dropping on android?
I’ve tried everything on mobile. See in desktop mode doesn’t help. The problem on mobile is that mobile phones don’t allow you to drag and drop between apps. When you’re on the Netlify Drop site, you’re on a browser app and the HTML files are being viewed in the Files app. You cannot drag and drop stuff between apps. It’s just not possible.
I’m a web app developer myself and typically when you allow file upload, drag and drop is a secondary feature. Where the primary method is always to choose the files you wish to upload through an upload button, which opens a file explorer popup. And it’s best practice to allow for both methods wherever file upload is enabled. Google Drive does it, for example.
So the problem here is that it works really well on PC but unfortunately no thought has been given to mobile users, which I guess is understandable given the % of people who write HTML code on mobile phones. But I’m now in a unique situation where this is a vital feature which if absent, will make Netlify unusable for us. And adding a button is not major work. It’s quite a trivial feature to add, but would make a world of difference in my situation.
I’ve been looking for alternatives, but honestly nothing beats Netlify in terms of simplicity and frankly there is no alternative available from my search so far.
totally get it! We have an open feature request to add this as an enhancement, and i have added your voice to that issue. I don’t know when we might work on this, but if we do, we’ll definitely loop back here to let you know.
I greatly admire your efforts, Sir. I myself am learning web development and I don’t have access to a computer at home. So I use my mobile to create web pages. We have been submitting our assignments using Google Classroom but now our Instructor has instructed us to submit our assignments using Netlify and now I am facing the exact same problem as you, that is, the lack of upload button. I am now puzzled what to do so the Netlify team needs to check this matter on a high priority. I am sure there are others that are facing the exact same issue.
