nerc-ceh/nyph-app

📱New Year Plant Hunt mobile application (BSBI)

NYPH App

New Year Plant Hunt by BSBI. https://nyph.bsbi.org/

Contribution

Think you've found a bug or have a new feature to suggest? Let us know!

Questions

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask on the iRecord forum.

Configuration

App configuration is hosted in config/config.js. Note: it should be done before building the code.

Building

• Install NodeJS
• Install SASS

gem install sass

• Get a copy of the code by running:

git clone git://github.com/NERC-CEH/NYPH-app.git

• Enter the NYPH-app directory and install the npm build dependencies:

cd NYPH-app && npm install

Cordova mobile app

• Build the project:

grunt cordova

• Update Cordova project with new web pages (replaces the www)

grunt cordova:update

Web app

If you are building for the web platform only:

Production

grunt

Development

grunt dev

This will create a dist folder with the app code and its dependencies.

Running app locally

• Express framework is provided for a quick launch of a web server.

node config/server.js

• Open the app on a browser http://localhost:8000

Authors

Karolis Kazlauskis

Copyright and license

Code copyright 2016 Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. Code released under the GNU GPL v3 license.

nyph-app's Issues

Date constraint, 1st to 4th of Jan 2017

Date constraint, 1st to 4th of Jan 2017

ideally error if outside range, but allow record submission

For NYPH recorder name should auto-lock

Recording for NYPH, the recorders will be invariant and re-entering names is a nusciance.

Irish gridrefs

bug filed for future reference...

Title of 'Edit' page is confusing

The page leads to edit links, but the page itself might better be titled 'Record details', or 'Details'. Otherwise 'Edit' looks like something to click to edit the record.

Add field for recorder name(s)

Should default to the single name of the person who registered, but allow entry of multiple names (ideally separated by ';')

highlighted map squares shown offset

The map square marker is misaligned with the grid.

Record stamp resets after app is closed and reopened

All records get re-assigned the same, current time as a stamp.

system error messages should be more friendly

Error messages titled 'Yikes' should include more friendly user guidance, e.g.

"There's been a problem, your records may not have been sent yet. Please check that you have a network connection and try again. If this problem persists then please let us know."

Display grid-refs on record list page

Apply title-case capitalisation to recorder names

Filter out duplicate taxon vernacular names

When searching by common name, multiple entries with the same common name appear in the list, e.g.

a search for: 'Black-poplar'

gives two results. It's impossible for the user to know which entry to pick. This is a problem because the duplicates often relate to taxa at different clade levels (i.e. at species and at sub-species). A user who resorts to using common names almost certainly wants the higher level (species) name - but by chance could choose either. If the wrong name is picked at subspecies level then this becomes a seriously misleading and problematic identification error.

The common name list should be sorted by name and then by scientific name and duplicate common names eliminated from the returned results.

The higher level taxon name should be retained in the case of duplicates.

I'd suggest sorting the common name matches by common name and then by number-of-words in the scientific name - which would be a broadly correct short-cut to returning the higher rank first.

Redisplay 'unknown flowering plant'

If a name is partially typed in the species picker and then deleted then the 'unknown flowering plant' option is no-longer displayed.

Records with no species assigned should default to 'Flowering plant'

Records with no species assigned should default to 'Flowering plant' - so that records with photos can be submitted without needing to explicitly set the 'Flowering Plant' option

help text: searching for species

Change text to:

The application holds all of the UK’s plant species. You can search using scientific or English names. Names can be abbreviated e.g. T repens or Tri rep for Tripholium repens. Keep typing until the name you want appears on the list.

If you don't know the name of the plant then leave the search box blank and click on 'Unknown flowering plant'

'Flowering plant' records should only be valid to submit if they have a photo

'Flowering plant' records should only be valid to submit if they have a photo

Turn off spelling corrections on location name

Currently android is spell-correcting place names - with many dubious results.

I'm not sure if it's possible to turn off auto-correct under app control.

time display in records list

depends on #5

Rather than displaying dates in the record list should try to display friendly time and/or date (but time only for records that have gps fix - as these are the only one that can be assumed to be entered live in the field.

Title of 'Species' page should be 'Plant name'

For the sake of avoiding jargon and also because 'species' is a particular rank - so is misused terminology.

Too many clicks to take photo

My workflow during the NYPH was to record the plant, and then only sometimes did I decide to take a photo: convenience, light etc. The steps were:

1. Click on Record
2. Click on Camera Icon in Record details
3. Choose take a photo from pop-up menu
4. Take the photo
5. Click the tick for the photo
6. Sometimes I needed to click again
7. Return from detailed record to record listing

Basically a more natural workflow would be:

Click on the image area in the record listing to access camera
Take the photo & immediately return to main record listing

I have no idea if this is possible given the vagaries of the various frameworks in use.

The reasons for advocating this reduced set of steps are:

• I lost photos because I had not noticed that a key press had not been accepted & I had moved on to next record. This was always due to missing one or both ticks for photos.
• Reviewing photos in the field is more tedious than taking them again. One can review photos before upload when sitting in the warm. I believe photos can be saved immediately whilst recording whatever their quality.
• The number of key clicks require made taking photos too tedious when I was seeing lots of plants. I was more likely to use my compact digital camera as this was faster.

One problem may be the standard behaviour of opening the detailed record for individual items in the record list. Ideally I would like to be able to click on this list to ADD ANOTHER record for the same species (something mentioned by other users during the Leicester NYPH) AND add photos to a record with the minimum number of clicks. It occurs to me in this context that one might want a "field mode" and a "review mode": one to maximise recording based on the record list with as few clicks as possible, the other closer to the current implementation with the detailed record at the heart of the UX.

tetrad gridref

e.g 2km square such as SD59A

probably too little time to implement, but leaving bug request as marker

'Send' button should not appear while not logged in

Possibly substitute a link to login/register page until the user has logged in.

Display dbox or splash screen when app starts with NYPH rules

probably much the same text as used for 'about'

also

explain to people that they need to register

OS Maps not working on nyph.bsbi.org domain

API key has been set (using key for bsbi.org) but maps still not working.

Remove training mode option?

Am wondering about removing the 'training mode' option from settings.

We might also contemplate automatically marking any record sent before 1st of Jan as training.

Please let me know what you think.

time stamp attribute

if possible could records have a hidden timestamp field?

Species lists too detailed for most users

Using the standard full BSBI list of vascular plants creates problems for a number of species which are likely to be widely recorded, for instance Dandelion, Daisy & Bramble (see images below):

In each of these cases the app would be easier to use with the most common likely value to be first in the list.

I would, at the very least, look at suppressing microspecies for the purpose of the NYPH. For those who record information at this level there is a comment field.

I dont know if there are any alternate ordering methods for the taxa lists: e.g., most frequently recorded on NYPH, recently recorded by user etc.

An other approach would be to use the BSBI VC lists which would give typical lists of around 1600 taxa and exclude many of the rarities which could make life difficult (see Achillea/Yarrow below).

add vertical space between taxon and page header on edit page

The taxon row is unlabelled (all the other rows give the attribute name).

When trying to click the to-left back button, it's easy to collide with the taxon entry, which displays a taxon edit screen that's confusing similar to the new record taxon entry screen.

add record '+' button is not obvious

Could the page continue to show a message along the lines of 'click + to add a record'?

Until someone is familiar with the app the current '+' is a bit obcure.