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manage_entries.php bug in display of field names in filter and field selection
Started 11 years ago by ScottYates | 9 posts |
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In both "Filter Entries" and "Select Fields" dialogs, it appears that multiple checkbox fields are being displayed with only the selection names.
Posted 11 years ago # -
If you mean the absence of the actual questions/field titles relating to each selection/response then I suppose it could be considered a bug, but I think this is by design. I'm sure it could be improved but there might be a reason it was done that way although not probably the most intuitive way.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I agree that this isn't a bug, but it is an extremely user unfriendly feature and should be improved as soon as possible. The fact that Machform works this way makes working with the data from forms with large numbers of check box items much more difficult than it should be.
Posted 11 years ago # -
It actually makes it impossible to choose the correct column to either filter or display. To me that is a bug.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Actually, having taken a longer look at this issue, I agree with you. I didn't mean to be quite so categorical originally, either; I intended to type "isn't necessarily a bug" in my post above. The bug extends to the fact that the column headers themselves are almost useless for identifying checkbox fields. In fact, this is all part of the same bug, since the column headings from the "form entry manager" are used as the choices in the "Filter Entries" and "Select Fields" interfaces. I can see that it will be some work for the programmers to make this aspect of Machform work properly, but I hope that they will make the effort; this flaw in the program is a very ugly wart on what is otherwise a mostly very pretty software package.
I suggest you report this problem using the contact form (link below) if neither Yuniar nor Redityo from Appnitro respond to this thread within a day.
Posted 11 years ago # -
yuniar
Thank you for reporting this. However, this is actually not a bug. By design, each checkbox item will be displayed using its own column.
So if you have one checkbox field with five items, then you will have five columns.MachForm currently unable to let you select the main checkbox question as a single column, due to technical difficulties.
I agree that it looks messy if you have many checkboxes field using the same title. We'll need to improve this further.
One option in mind is to add the field number as part of the selection names, so that you could easily identify them.I'm putting this into our improvement/feature request list.
Thanks again for the feedbacks.MachForm Founder
Posted 11 years ago # -
No one is asking for a way to "select the main checkbox question as a single column," we just want to be able to identify the checkbox items easily. This aspect of your product is more than just "messy," it is actively unfriendly to the user. I can understand the difficulty, but you really need to come up with a way to use the checkbox question text as a non-selectable heading over all of the item columns that belong to that checkbox. In the "Filter Entries" interface you already have the non-selectable headings "Form Fields" and "Entry Information". You just need to add an additional level of dynamic non-selectable headings based on the question text in checkbox fields, and then add a similar feature to the "Select Fields" interface. You should also consider adding a second heading level to the main "entries viewer," which will be blank for non-checkbox items but contain the checkbox question text as a main heading spanning all of the checkbox items for checkbox fields.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I agree with Williamansley on this. It is specifically VERY hard to figure out what you are filtering or displaying.
The problem is not that each check box is listed, the problem is that the NAME of the check box is listed as for example "Yes", or "No", or whatever the name of the option itself is. There is no way for the user to know WHAT the "Yes" or no is in response to.
My suggestion would be to allow the form creator to input a "display name" field for ALL entries and just store it along with the rest of the meta data about the form. Then just show that display name if it is filled in, instead of the field label.
If we could specify how each option and field is displayed in the selection and filter lists, that would fix the issue completely I think.
I am extending MachForms for some in house use, and from what I have seen of the code, it seems like this would be the least disruptive way to implement.
Posted 11 years ago # -
they said that they will improve that. Lets just wait for more improvements
Posted 11 years ago #
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