Camera Date Folders vs Com-Phone Story Maker
Side-by-side comparison of two open source alternatives
Camera Date Folders
Sorts all photos, located in the device's camera folder, into a date specific subfolder structure. This makes it easier to transfer specific photos to a computer, e.g. via USB cable (MTP protocol). Either keep photos inside the camera folder tree or move or copy them to a separate directory. This can also be used as a simple backup method. Up to three levels are supported: year, month and day. The sorting can be reverted, i.e. all photos can be moved back to the base directory (but not back to the camera directory in case a destination directory is specified). On the demand a file name prefix like "IMG_" or "PXL_" can be appended instead or completely removed. Note that this operation is not revertible. The program does not read metadata (EXIF) from the photo files, instead it uses the data information encoded in the filenames. To meet Google's restrictive policy, the Play Store variant of the program must use Google's proprietary Storage Access Framework when running on Android 11 or newer. As a consequence, file operations are extremely slow. This restriction partially exists also for older Android versions and not at all for the F-Droid version of the program. In this case standard file access calls can be activated alternatively, which accelerate the file operations with a factor of approximately 90 (!).
Com-Phone Story Maker
Com-Phone Story Maker helps you create multimedia narratives, combining photos, audio and text in exciting ways to tell digital stories. The app's simple interface helps you create your own photo slideshows to document your life; send to other devices running the application or play back locally; create templates; export as a movie; upload to YouTube; or, save a web version to self-publish. Each story can include any number of media frames. Each individual frame of the story can include an image or photo, up to three layered audio or music tracks, and text content. Anything in a frame can be edited at any time – for example, you can pause audio recording and then resume later, or load pictures from your media library. All elements of each frame are optional. For example, Com-Phone can also be used as an annotated photo diary, a simple audio recorder, a text and sound tool for discussion about current events, or even a multimedia survey app. A simple printable user manual is available at: https://digitaleconomytoolkit.org/manuals/com-phone.pdf. Com-Phone is completely free, with no adverts and no unnecessary permissions. The app is open source as part of the Com-Me toolkit – you can fork any of the Com-Me tools on GitHub: https://github.com/communitymedia. For more information about the Com-Me project, see: https://digitaleconomytoolkit.org.
| Feature | Camera Date Folders | Com-Phone Story Maker |
|---|---|---|
| License | GPL-3.0-only | LGPL-3.0-only |
| Install sources | F-Droid | F-DroidGitHub |
| Categories | Media PlayerVideo | Media PlayerVideo |
| Features | Ad-FreeOpen SourceNo Tracking | Ad-FreeOpen SourceNo Tracking |
| Platforms | Android | Android |
| Website | ||
| Source code |