Tips for using Secure image/pdf/text viewer

Description:

This viewer displays files containing images, videos, plain text, html pages, and PDF documents. The file type is determined by the file extension, such as TXT, PDF, image and video extensions. Images can be open in the following formats: BMP, GIF, PNG, JPEG, WebP and more. Videos:3GP, MP4, WEBM.    

This application is designed to quickly pin the screen, which is easier than the standard Android pinning. At the same time, the application guarantees that after pinning, third parties will only be able to access the current document and nothing else. 

Application Help 

This viewer is designed to lock documents when handing over the phone to third parties. The locking mechanism is based on the standard Android screen pinning. Before using this application, you need to enable screen pinning:

- Open your phone\'s Settings app.

 - Tap Security or Security & location And then Advanced And then Screen pinning.

 - Turn on Screen pinning.

 The application supports text files, JPG, PNG and GIF images, MP4 videos and PDF documents. 

Files can be selected from local storage or from Google Drive.\n There are two options for selecting  the file: either the “Select File” button or the “Select File securely” button. The first button is available while the application is not pinned or immediately after pinning the application using Pin button. The “Select File securely” button is protected by a screen lock mechanism selected on your phone, or by fingerprint.

To enable/disable screen rotation  without leaving the pinned mode,  the application has “rotate on” and “rotate off” buttons. Screen rotating is a System Setting, so, when you first use “rotate on” and “rotate off” buttons, you will receive a pop-up screen asking you to allow changing the System Settings for this application.

There are two options for pin this application. One of them is to open the file, and then perform the standard Android “Pin a screen” operation. 

( https://support.google.com/android/answer/9455138?hl=en )

The second option is to use the “Pin” button in this application. Then you will see the standard Android dialog with two options: confirm pinning by tapping somewhere outside this dialog or cancel pinning by pressing “No thanks”. \nEnsure that the application is successfully pinned before you will hand over the phone. There is a good indication. If the screen is pinned, the status bar is blank with notifications and system information hidden.

Text files, images and videos are opened by the standard Android HTML viewer which supports pinch to zoom and screen scrolling.  PDF documents are open by an internal PDF viewer. The viewer supports zooming and paging with the intuitive button interface. There is also the option to go directly to a specific page number.

   All supported files can be open also from any file manager via "Open with" dialog or directly from any messenger or email client via "Share with" dialog.

Attention Samsung and other non-Pixel phone owners!

This application allows us to select and open file directly in the Secure Viewer application by using the standard Android file selector framework shown on Pic 1.  You see different categories: "Recent", "Images", "Videos", "Audio", "Documents", "Downloads",  the device storage, and available network storage destinations.   To select a local file you can use different categories. For example, you downloaded a PDF file, like Sample.pdf.  The file will be located in the local Download folder of the internal storage. To open Sample.pdf you can use any of the options: "Recent",  "Documents", "Downloads",  or just go to the Download folder in the internal storage as shown on Pic 2 . Finally using any of above categories you will select and open the same Sample.pdf file.   However, some Samsung devices and some other non-Pixel phones have a system bug, that prevents selecting PDF files through "Downloads" category.  If you get the following pop-up message on your phone " SYSTEM error, don't use Download to open PDF" , don't use  "Downloads"  to open PDF. Use other options, such as  "Recent",  "Documents", or go directly to the Download folder in the internal storage as shown on Pic 2.  This bug affects only PDF documents. All other files such as images, videos and audio are not affected.

Additional Info and Tips: 

Tips to have quick access to documents.

If you want to be prepared to show a document to third parties, you can open the document with Secure Viewer in advance and keep it open in memory. If needed, you can find Secure Viewer in recent apps by pressing the standard Android Recent app button. Once the document appears on the screen, press the Android Back button, press the Pin button, press OK to confirm, and press Reopen last. That's it. The document is visible and locked. It's very fast, as shown in the video below.

Click to open in YouTube if you want to see captions

Tips to have frequent  documents at hand.

Using desktop shortcuts is a convenient way, as shown in the video. Samsung owners can create desktop shortcuts using the default Samsung My Files out of the box. To create desktop shortcuts on non-Samsung devices, you need to use third-party file managers. You can find many free file managers in the Play Store and F-DROID that allow you to create desktop shortcuts on the home screen. You can organize shortcuts  into folders on any Desktop Launcher. 

If from any reason, desktop shortcuts are not a good option to you, on non-Samsung devices you can use Starred in Files by Google. 

Samsung owners can install Files by Google or/and use Favourites for folders in  Samsung My Files.

Tips to keep document securely on the device you can protect files with password. 

Samsung  owners can  use installed Secure folder application. You need just to add the Secure Viewer to the applications allowed by Secure Folder. 

Owners of other than Samsung devices can use Safe folder into Files by Google. However,  Files by Google let us open documents stored in Safe folder only via internal viewers of Files by Google pinning which is unsafe. For using any other viewer including our Secure Viewer we need to temporary move the document out from Safe folder. Then go to Resents  in  Files by Google. The moved out document will be on top. Open it with our Secure Viewer. Later don't forget to move it again to the Safe folder for secure long term storage.