About that problem dragging questions up and down in the form editor! :)

Users
1

Hi everyone --

What do you guys do about that issue in the form editor where, when you try
to change the order of questions by dragging a question up or down, half of
the time the question does not succeed in dragging? I often have to try to
drag it 3 or 4 times before I succeed in getting it to move.

Is there some tip that can help make it succeed in dragging the question
into its new position every time?

Thanks!

2

Hi Eric,

Say you want to move Q3 down to under Q6. There's a horizontal bar that
should move when you drag Q3. In addition to moving that bar to under Q6,
try moving a little further up, so that Q6 gets highlighted. Then drop Q3.
I think that should work. Let us know if it doesn't!

Thanks,
Kriti

··· On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 2:00 PM, Eric Stephan wrote:

Hi everyone --

What do you guys do about that issue in the form editor where, when you
try to change the order of questions by dragging a question up or down,
half of the time the question does not succeed in dragging? I often have
to try to drag it 3 or 4 times before I succeed in getting it to move.

Is there some tip that can help make it succeed in dragging the question
into its new position every time?

Thanks!

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3

Hi,

I love the subject line of this thread. I just always assumed that this
issue was the horrible price to pay for using a form designer instead of
directly editing the XML.

Kriti, your advice is illuminating! Is there some sort of easy (yeah right)
user interface change that could be made so that others don't suffer
through years of frustrating drag and drop like (cough cough) some of us?
The horizontal bar really does intuitively feel like it should be the
indicator, not the highlighting. When I've trained people to use CommCare,
this is a big frustration.

Thanks,
Sarah

··· On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 9:34 AM, Kriti Mehrotra wrote:

Hi Eric,

Say you want to move Q3 down to under Q6. There's a horizontal bar that
should move when you drag Q3. In addition to moving that bar to under Q6,
try moving a little further up, so that Q6 gets highlighted. Then drop Q3.
I think that should work. Let us know if it doesn't!

Thanks,
Kriti

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 2:00 PM, Eric Stephan estephan@fhi360.org wrote:

Hi everyone --

What do you guys do about that issue in the form editor where, when you
try to change the order of questions by dragging a question up or down,
half of the time the question does not succeed in dragging? I often have
to try to drag it 3 or 4 times before I succeed in getting it to move.

Is there some tip that can help make it succeed in dragging the question
into its new position every time?

Thanks!

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4

I just looked into this issue recently because I noticed the same thing. My
conclusion was that it is a bug in the JSTree library (the underlying
component used to display the tree). Maybe I can figure out how to fix that
bug and contribute a patch to JSTree.

Until then Kriti is absolutely right, you can work around this bug by
ensuring that a questions beside the horizontal bar is highlighted before
dropping the item. If you're too precise and hover directly over the drop
indicator (horizontal bar), then the drop will fail! So frustrating!!

~ Daniel

··· On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 9:34 AM, Kriti Mehrotra wrote:

Hi Eric,

Say you want to move Q3 down to under Q6. There's a horizontal bar that
should move when you drag Q3. In addition to moving that bar to under Q6,
try moving a little further up, so that Q6 gets highlighted. Then drop Q3.
I think that should work. Let us know if it doesn't!

Thanks,
Kriti

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 2:00 PM, Eric Stephan estephan@fhi360.org wrote:

Hi everyone --

What do you guys do about that issue in the form editor where, when you
try to change the order of questions by dragging a question up or down,
half of the time the question does not succeed in dragging? I often have
to try to drag it 3 or 4 times before I succeed in getting it to move.

Is there some tip that can help make it succeed in dragging the question
into its new position every time?

Thanks!

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5

This is great info... "When you drop the field, make sure its new neighbor
is highlighted." I just tested the method and I get it!

Of course, it is the exact opposite of what we instinctively expect. "OK,
it didn't work last time. This time I will make sure it is EXACTLY in
between the two new neighbors, without rubbing up against them." No
wonder I never figured this out...

Thanks!

6

Hi All,

It took a bit of work, but I am happy to announce that we have fixed the
drag/drop bug in the form builder. The drop indicator no longer gets in the
way (the horizontal bar is gone), so now dragging and dropping should be
less frustrating.

This fix comes along with a few other improvements as well, such as easier
to identify warning indicators when the form builder detects a problem with
the form. Happy form building!

~ Daniel

··· On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 6:02 AM, Eric Stephan wrote:

This is great info... "When you drop the field, make sure its new neighbor
is highlighted." I just tested the method and I get it!

Of course, it is the exact opposite of what we instinctively expect. "OK,
it didn't work last time. This time I will make sure it is EXACTLY in
between the two new neighbors, without rubbing up against them." No
wonder I never figured this out...

Thanks!

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7

That is great! Thanks for fixing that! The form builder is something that
you are deeply involved with for long periods, and every little bit
smoother that process can be will make it possible for us to handle our app
development better... Thanks --Eric