I wanted to install Delta Chat on an e-ink reader and when I select “I already have a profile” it asks me to scan something which is hopeless because this li’l device doesn’t have a camera.
Please help because Delta Chat is the only reason why I got this thing!
You can still export a backup, copy it to the device and import it from a file.
But Android indeed needs to get a way to paste the link from clipboard:
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A backup? That’s going to be millions of gigs since I’ve used Delta Chat for years 
this dinky li’l e-ink will break.
If I just set it up normally as if I were setting up a new account, will the e-ink instance of Delta Chat sync with the iPad?
you could just export/import the keys or do it with a autocrypt setup message, then only new messages would be transfered.
There was the plan to offer to reverse the scan direction (optionally scan target’s qr code instead of source), but it did not happen yet (at the time there were some technical challenges if I remember correctly).
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It will not sync old messages, but you can indeed use Autocrypt Setup Message to transfer the key to new device and it will be then have the same key as the old device.
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Can you transfer e.g. to your laptop/desktop that has more space and then export backup from there?
I made a new profile (connecting to my same dovecot/postfix server).
Tried to open the li’l “new features” message that y’all send and Delta Chat crashed and the next time it opened it hadn’t saved the profile. So I created it once more. Then I went to the iPad and did the autocrypt setup message from the advanced settings. And back to the InkPalm and when I opened the autocrypt setup message, it crashed again. (Maybe there’s some issue with the web view?)
And everytime I need to create the entire profile anew! It doesn’t save it!
I created the profile once more and this time, before clicking on any messages, I switched to another app (a book app where I read a couple of pages), then soft-rebooted the InkPalm. Now Delta Chat remembers my profile. When I click on any message, it still crashes.
Oh and now I have three copies of my own profile saved 
because when I click on my own letter S in the top left corner I can switch between three sandra.snan@idiomdrottning.org profiles but before, it did’t let me get to them because it kept crashing back to the “add new profile” screen 
There is no WebView used to open Autocrypt Setup Message, it should open native Android dialog where you can enter the numbers when you click it. There should be no “Show full messages…” that opens a webview.
Probably best bet is to enable USB debugging and check with adb logcat what exactly crashes in the app from a stacktrace.
Okay so I’m gonna need to get a computer to fix this 
There are log(cat) apps that you can use without a computer, might need root though, I didn’t try it recently:
https://search.f-droid.org/?q=logcat&lang=de
I created a PR adding a way to paste from clipboard to the “add second device” scanner:
but I am afraid your first device will crash with the exact same dialog “no space left on device” since adding a second device is basically the same as making a backup and then sending it over the network
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No, only the database snapshot is copied to the temporary storage, blobs are sent directly to the network stream. .tar backup file is never written to the disk.
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nice!
I am adding compression for backups here:
This may help with exporting backups on devices that have little space.
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(I was okay with not keeping seven years of old messages on the new device [only since it’s a secondary device, not a replacement device, in which case yeah all these patches are gonna become necessary] but I got stuck at the crashing when opening messages. One app that does work on the InkPalm is ConnectBot so that’s gonna be my for-now solution for email on travels.)