new menu entry: File > Manage forms...

[getodk]

new menu entry: File > Manage forms...

[issa-tseng]

Hi Florian:

The manage forms feature is something I do need to add; I may simply add it to the Open Form list, since that's the only list anyway, and Windows/MacOS offer similar interfaces in their open dialogs.

In the case of upload, I've actually spent some time earlier today fixing this issue already; give me a little bit and I'll push it out to production.

Thanks!

[florianm]

Thanks for your fast reply!
The "Open form" would be a nice place to put the select boxes and the
delete / download selected button ;-)
My end users here at the Western Australian Dept of Environment and
Conservation are impressed with ODK, especially how easy it is to make
a form in ODK Build!
Is there a way to share forms on ODK Build or to host an own local or
clowd instance?

Cheers,
Florian

[issa-tseng]

Hi Florian:

The save/load feature has been released, please give it a shot and let me know if it suits your needs.

It is certainly possible to host your own instance of ODK Build; follow the instructions in the README file and it should get you all the way home there. I'd be happy to help you in that endeavour if you so wish, but I generally recommend people to stick with the "official" Build platform, simply because it is updated more frequently, and I generally manage to hit 99.99% reliability/uptime on it.

I have cool ideas planned for sharing without having to download a file, but that is quite far in the future on the roadmap (more than a couple months) =).

Anyway, let me know how the save/load native file feature works for you. Thanks!

[florianm]

Hi Issa,

thanks for the fast fix! I've downloaded a form to .odkbuild,
reuploaded the same form to .odkbuild and it seems to work fine. I'll
do more testing involving two different accounts and let you know how
I go or file a bug report.
I was conscious about your server quota when asking to host my own
instance, but am very happy to use the official build! If my users at
the Dept of Environment and Conservation of Western Australia, go with
ODK to collect data, this would mean a higher usage, so that's
probably when we should carry our own hosting cost.

My immediate goal is to ingest the ODK-collected data (and other
in-house generated data sets) into a scientific data warehouse like
Xenia [1], which ingests ObsKML [2], a metadata-enriched version of
KML. I'll try and see if there's a way to formulate an xform in a way
that the collected data will form a valid ObsKML after export from ODK
Aggregate. In this case, all we need is a form template
(obskml_template.odkbuild) and, using "load form from file", everybody
could start generating data that is easy to load into a warehouse.

Cheers and thanks again for the fast implementation!
Florian

[1] http://code.google.com/p/xenia/
[2] http://nautilus.baruch.sc.edu/twiki_dmcc/bin/view/Main/ObsKML#Schema_simple

[florianm]

Update:
upload broken file does not break things
save to file > edit copy of file > break file by deleting one
character (a " in the first line)

load from file > as expected, does not load the form, resets to empty form
load original, not broken file > opens the form

change .odkbuild file's name does not break things
save to file > rename file > upload from file > opens the form

[issa-tseng]

Hi Florian:

Thanks for the thorough testing. =)

There should be a 'x' to delete forms in the open forms dialog now. Let me know if it's not up to snuff, and please do feel free to open more tickets here if you have more feature requests or problems.

Best,
—Issa

[florianm]

Hi Issa,

thanks for the delete buttons - I can confirm they work and are where I'd
expect them.
I'll submit more tickets as soon as I find anything!

Cheers,
Florian

[issa-tseng]

Great— thanks!