I have a giant form to build, and therefore I am happy that I can use the
XLSform format to then convert into a Xform that I will nicely paste into
my commcare app... rather than building the big form by hand in the forms
editor.
-- First off, the documentation says this sentence: FormHub is not actively supported, so we recommend using XLSForm.
... I think that warning is a bit nonsensical, and had me disoriented for a
while. Definitely the FormHub website is not being actively maintained for
years now (though it still mostly works.) BUT, it seems that you can not
simply "use XLSform" as an alternative as the above text implies, right?
XLSform is simply the standard, and that XLSform website has great guidance
but does NOT have an actual "upload your XLSform here to convert it to an
Xform."
-- For that actual crucial "Convert your excel to an xform document"
function, it really looks like the only converter that is actually
discussed on that documentation page is still that FormHub site, right? If
so, that misleading text should be clarified.
--And second... *CAN* anyone tell me any *other options *for an online
converter to change my XLSform document into an Xform XML document?
Because... that FormHub site gives me error messages with text about the
site being over capacity more than half the time! I'd love to clearly know
where other converters are!
I'm pretty new to Dimagi so don't have much to say re: your FormHub issues
or loading XForms into CommCare, I'm sorry to report. However, I've worked
a bit in ODK and maybe can help to clarify:
Hope this is helpful, and I bet someone else will get back to you soon re:
your higher-level questions. I don't doubt that the Confluence page could
use some updating--managing our wiki is a bit ad-hoc--so thanks for
bringing it to our attention.
Good luck!
Best,
Jordan
路路路
On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 3:05 PM, Eric Stephan wrote:
Hi all --
I have a giant form to build, and therefore I am happy that I can use the
XLSform format to then convert into a Xform that I will nicely paste into
my commcare app... rather than building the big form by hand in the forms
editor.
However, I am finding there are weaknesses in theCommCare documentation
for this, which is at https://confluence.dimagi.com/
display/commcarepublic/Use+Excel+to+Build+CommCare+Forms
-- First off, the documentation says this sentence: FormHub is not actively supported, so we recommend using XLSForm.
... I think that warning is a bit nonsensical, and had me disoriented for
a while. Definitely the FormHub website is not being actively maintained
for years now (though it still mostly works.) BUT, it seems that you can
not simply "use XLSform" as an alternative as the above text implies,
right? XLSform is simply the standard, and that XLSform website has great
guidance but does NOT have an actual "upload your XLSform here to convert
it to an Xform."
-- For that actual crucial "Convert your excel to an xform document"
function, it really looks like the only converter that is actually
discussed on that documentation page is still that FormHub site, right? If
so, that misleading text should be clarified.
--And second... *CAN* anyone tell me any *other options *for an
online converter to change my XLSform document into an Xform XML
document? Because... that FormHub site gives me error messages with text
about the site being over capacity more than half the time! I'd love to
clearly know where other converters are!
Wow! Thanks much. That URL is very helpful. So, either that URL you
provided (ODK - XLSForm Online v2.x) was absent or really buried on
the wiki documentation, or maybe I was just somehow clueless.
-- In any case, if that page could be adjusted to be just a bit more clear,
and with the two URLs that you provide placed very front and center, that
would be great.
-- also... is that wiki only edited by dimagi staff? I don't see where to
register for an account for editing it... but maybe that's for the best.
Hi Eric, glad it helped. We do keep the Confluence editing internal to
Dimagi, but definitely appreciate your suggestions--sounds like some
clarification could be beneficial. I'll take a look or pass them on to
someone more engaged with the process.
Good luck!
Best,
Jordan
路路路
On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 8:06 AM, Eric Stephan wrote:
Wow! Thanks much. That URL is very helpful. So, either that URL you
provided (ODK - XLSForm Online) was absent or really buried on
the wiki documentation, or maybe I was just somehow clueless.
-- In any case, if that page could be adjusted to be just a bit more
clear, and with the two URLs that you provide placed very front and center,
that would be great.
-- also... is that wiki only edited by dimagi staff? I don't see where to
register for an account for editing it... but maybe that's for the best.
We have updated the page to make the links more prominent and added the
suggestion for the validation tool; hope this helps!
Jeremy
路路路
On Tuesday, November 15, 2016 at 5:54:12 AM UTC+2, jlevinson wrote:
>
> Hi Eric, glad it helped. We do keep the Confluence editing internal to
> Dimagi, but definitely appreciate your suggestions--sounds like some
> clarification could be beneficial. I'll take a look or pass them on to
> someone more engaged with the process.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Best,
> Jordan
>
> On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 8:06 AM, Eric Stephan <estep...@gmail.com > wrote:
>
>>
>> Wow! Thanks much. That URL is very helpful. So, either that URL you
>> provided (http://opendatakit.org/xiframe/) was absent or really buried
>> on the wiki documentation, or maybe I was just somehow clueless.
>>
>> -- In any case, if that page could be adjusted to be just a bit more
>> clear, and with the two URLs that you provide placed very front and center,
>> that would be great.
>>
>> -- also... is that wiki only edited by dimagi staff? I don't see where
>> to register for an account for editing it... but maybe that's for the best.
>> :)
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "commcare-users" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
>> email to commcare-user...@googlegroups.com .
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Jordan Levinson
> Dimagi India | Field Manager
> D - 1/28 Vasant Vihar | New Delhi 110057, India
> t: +91 11.46704670 | m: +91 9599692119
> www.dimagi.com
>
> *- We're hiring! Find out more here
> . -*
>
Hey, I have just worked out a few points that are pretty valuable (about
using foreign languages/alphabets with the XML) that would belong on that
wiki documentation page...
Could you guys take the text that I have written below, and consider it for
placement into that XLSform wiki page? If you do use it, feel free to make
edits or corrections. Thanks!
路路路
======
Using non-Latin languages and alphabets in the XLSform-XML process
If you choose to use XLSform's ability to handle multiple languages, by
reading the XLSforms documentation and adding additional columns to contain
the additional language content, please note the following:
The XLSform documentation tells you to create additional columns and
give those new columns headers like label::English. However, if your
purpose is to eventually paste that XML into CommCare, then you need to be
careful about what the title of the language you use in those column
headers. For commcare use, you should not use the full language name like
"English," but instead must use the "short language codes," such as en
and tha, that are shown in the little "Languages" pull-down menu in
CommCare's left nav bar. Therefore your additional column headers will look
like label::en or required_message::tha.
If your additional language content uses alphabets other than the
latin character set, you will have to be careful about the way that you
handle the process of copying your finally converted XML file into
CommCare. Normally, many users would simply double-click the XML file that
they had downloaded from the converter, select-all and copy, and then paste
that XML into the CommCare forms editor. However, on Windows, it is likely
that the default application that loads when you double-click the XML
document will not display the non-latin character set correctly, and will
therefore paste as gibberish into your CommCare form. If this happens,
then, when you download the XML document from the converter, open it in a
text-editing application that is more able to handle non-latin alphabets
(one example is the Notepad++ app for Windows.) This app will correctly
handle the non-latin characters in the XML, and then you can successfully
cut-and-paste from that app into the CommCare form editor.
I've been sifting through your posts and have enjoyed seeing where some of the current materials on the wiki pages have started - great job Eric. And I appreciate all the explanations that have been offered on the wiki page, including limitations, when uploading XLS forms to CCHQ.
I recently posted a question that has failed to garner enough attention or replies, but I'm wondering if you have gone through similar issues before - I've been testing Xform uploads onto CCHQ and have been noticing that all select_one and select_multiple automatically convert to multiple choice and checkbox lookup tables. I'm not sure why this happens and what's a way to work around that. If you have faced this issue and can let me know how you deal with it, I would very much appreciate it.
I think something has changed between ODK - XLSForm Online and CommCareHQ that is causing this issue. You can use this offline converter. It works well for now even though it has not been used for a couple of years.
