ODK Build 0.3.1

This is a desktop version of ODK Build. It operates independently from build.opendatakit.org, and is a great option if you have questionable connectivity or don't wish to bother with creating an account.

New features

• Create "Other… specify" type questions without messing with relevance logic. Look for the new "Follow-up question" option on Choose One/Select Many questions, which allow you to add a follow-up question to ask given certain answers.
• New option to specify a custom error message for required field validation.
• New option to customize a form's name on the device. Look under Edit > Form Properties.
• Remove multiple questions at once by selecting them all and trying to remove any of them. It will ask what you wish to do.
• [Offline Build] New completely anonymous usage analytics to help us improve the app for you.
• [Offline Build] Now checks for new releases and notifies you if one is found.

Bug fixes

• #155: [Offline Build] Display Language menu wouldn't update language name as expected.
• #123: Clarified the explanation of Invalid Text.
• #151: Media type questions could crash XML export if a media type was not explicitly chosen.
• #148: deviceid metadata questions were not converting to XLSForm correctly.
• #138: Advanced property section should remember whether it is visible or not.
• #118: [Online Build] Clicking on the checkmark in a menu yielded undefined behaviour.
• #107: Uploading a form to a nonexistent Aggregate URL generated a nonsense error.

ODK Build 0.3.0

This is a desktop version of ODK Build. It operates independently from build.opendatakit.org, and is a great option if you have questionable connectivity or don't wish to bother with creating an account.

New features

• [Offline Build] Open multiple forms in multiple windows! Open/New/Save As now load your new form instance in a new window, so you can work on more than one form at the same time.
• Freeform language options: you can name your languages whatever you want.
  • Also, Build will now remember your display language and restore it when saving/opening a form.
• You can now hold shift or ctrl/cmd (win/mac) to select multiple questions at once and move them around together.
• In general, dragging should be less twitchy than before.
• You can now drag questions between two ODK Build documents open in different windows!
  • Hold ctrl (win) or option (mac) while doing so to clone the questions to the new document rather than move them.
  • Note: In IE/Edge, questions will always clone.
  • If you have a common set of questions that are used across many forms, you can use this to author them once and then copy them to where they need to go.
  • Or if you have really gigantic forms you can author them in pieces and assemble them near the end to make it more manageable.
• New help pane gives more help and information than before.
  • For instance, for years now it's been possible to use ${syntax} in labels and hints to reference other answers; that's now explained.
• Advanced section stays open when you switch between controls.
• Range/length/count options can now be open-ended: if you only fill in a min or a max it will only enforce that side.
• Basic defaults for Choose One/Select Many mean they are no longer red when created.
• Warning about saving your current work only appears when it needs to.

Performance improvements

• General performance improvements increase large-form performance by ~100x.
• IE-specific improvements should have an even greater impact.
• Elimination of most image content should help low-bandwidth users immensely.

Bug fixes

• #91: Translations menu language options now correctly restored on form load.
• Generally better handling of updating the properties pane when eg creating new forms.
• #60/#63: More consistent form title updating on Save As.

ODK Build 0.2.0

This is a desktop version of ODK Build. It operates independently from build.opendatakit.org, and is a great option if you have questionable connectivity or don't wish to bother with creating an account.

Changes since version 0.1.0:

General changes:

• Upgrade the framework from node-webkit 0.12 to nwjs 0.18 (security, performance updates).
• Removed interface items that weren't supported (branch; help menu).

New features:

• Added support for exporting to XLSForm-compliant .xlsx files (File > Export to XLSForm).
• Added support for uploading forms to ODK Aggregate on GAE.
• Added UI to allow changing the form name (Settings > Form Properties).
• Added Date/Time and Time control types.
• Added more data kind types for Date/Time: Full Date and Time, Full Date, Year and Month, and Year.
• Added more Metadata options: Today, Username, Subscriber ID, SIM Serial, and Phone Number.
• Added geotrace (GPS path) and geoshape (GPS polygon) options to Location.
• Added more appearance types for Location: Show Map (GPS) and Manual (No GPS).
• Added more appearance types for Select One/Many: Minimal (spinner), Table, Horizontal Layout.
• Added easy constraint builder for checking the number of responses on a Select Many question (Response Count).

Bug fixes:

• Fix #36: use the correct field to populate constraint messages.
• Fix #28: prevent the first data name character from being numeric.
• Fix #9: Looped groups that are marked as Display on One Screen (field list) should export better for Collect.
• Fix #29: Disallow Display on One Screen (field list) groups from containing groups.
• Fix #5: Improve validation for: uniqueness of data names (now checks all fields rather than just the sibling fields); require underlying values for options; check validity of underlying values; check that Select One/Many questions have at least one option.
• Fix interactivity issues when the window was too small.
• Warn if relevance logic is used with a Display on One Screen (field list) group (won't update if it depends on other fields within the same group).

ODK Build 0.1.0

This is a preliminary experimental release of an offline version of ODK Build. It currently doesn't support renaming the form, and only has a release for OS X and Windows. Note that you must resave .odkbuild files created with the web version before they will work with the desktop version.