Panning in map-widget results in page jump

User Support Form Building
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1

Hi together,

since Kobo will become the primary maintainer of Enketo, I would like to bring up a long standing bug in the map widgets.

To Reproduce

  1. Go to ‘Map panning bug’
  2. Follow the instructions in the form

XLSForm for own tests:
XLSForm_map_panning_bug.xlsx (9.2 KB)

Expected behavior
Only the map should move according to the panning. The form page should not change.

Browser and OS (please complete the following information):

  • OS: Windows Desktop PC
  • Browser: Firefox, Chrome

Additional context
Seems not to appear on mobile devices. Tested with Firefox on Android 13.
Also appears on Tablet PC (Chrome, Firefox). Does not appear on Smartphones in portrait orientation but appears when rotated to landscape.

This is a copy of an issue I have already submitted on Github and would be very happy to see this solved.

If anyone can provide a workaround (e.g. by disabling the function to switch pages by swiping left/right or right/left) I would be grateful. We run an own server and so have the opportunity to implement an interim solution.

Thanks,
Daniel

2

Welcome back to the community, @DSimon! Could you kindly share with us a screenshot of your issue so that we could understand it pictorially? Thank you once again for brining this issue to us.

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Hi @Kal_Lam,

sure, but I recommend opening the form i have linked in the original post and just follow the instructions to see the behavior.

Here are the screens (taken from the form linked in the original post).

  1. Open the link and skip the first page
  2. On the second page there are three geowidgets (point) with different appearances (the bug applies to all of them).
  3. Pan one of the maps from the very left to the very right (or other way round; see following picture)
    screen1
    screen1690×507 145 KB
  4. You will end up on the first page again (see folowing picture)
    screen2
    screen2745×606 9.05 KB

    4.1 if you pan from right to left you will end up on page 3 of the form.

This is really has a negativ impact on usability, especially for self-administered form deployemts and we often get (understandably) negative feedback on this.

1 Like
5

Thanks for the bug report @DSimon . It seems like there may be an issue between the browser/Enketo capturing press-drag motions in the map and interpreting page-flipping gestures. Bit surprised this hasn’t been picked up before TBH…

I’m not sure there’s an immediate workaround, alas, other than perhaps disabling Enketo’s page style (but obviously you wanted a paging form for a reason to begin with…).

That said, if you make the geopoint questions required, that would appear to at least stop the pan-left/forward swipe from happening (at least until you have select a point). Because the question is now mandatory, Enketo wont let you go to the next page till it is answered. Unfortunately, that doesn’t prevent the pan-right/back swipe, as you can always go back in a form…

Have a look at this - is not a solution, but perhaps a little less jarring?

XLSForm_map_panning_bug.xlsx (9.6 KB)

3 Likes
6

Hi @Xiphware,
thanks for the suggestion. It would at least solve “half” the problem. I will see if requiring the questions is a viable option for our current project and does not break our current logics in the form. Currently the map questions are indirectly mandatory by applying a constraint that forces participants to move a pre-defined marker.

And yes, we deliberately went with the pages style. Otherwise the form would “feel” to long and maybe confusing.

I also suspect there is an interference with with the page flipping gestures. My preferred solution would be to just remove the functionality to change pages by gestures in coming Enketo releases. At least from my experience this functionality is not used (because it is not known by untrained participants) and therefore unnecessary. For Navigation there is still the sections menu (on top right) and the next/back buttons.

One addition supporting the assumption of intereference with the swiping gestures: The same problem appears with the range widget. When dragging the slider from far left to far right (and other way round) the page also changes. I added a range slider to the linked form and provided XLS in the first post.

1 Like
7

Its probably worth including this in the bug report here: Panning in map-widget results in page jump · Issue #1359 · enketo/enketo · GitHub

And yes, it is increasingly looking like a map scroll vs page swipe interference issue… :+1:

1 Like
8

Its probably worth including this in the bug report here: Panning in map-widget results in page jump · Issue #1359 · enketo/enketo · GitHub

Just added this. :slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes
9

Hi there,
given the problem that panning a map in Enketo results in page jumps when using forms with pages style (see here Panning in map-widget results in page jump · Issue #1359 · enketo/enketo · GitHub and here Panning in map-widget results in page jump) and because I do not expect this issue to be solved before Enketo will be maintained by Kobo I would like to ask if there is a way to disable the swiping gestures for changing a forms page (when designed in pages style) on our own server.

We would really appreciate any guidance to disable this functionality because there are upcoming deployments in early 2025 where this problem might become a huge issue.

Thanks in advance!

1 Like
11

As an interim solution just turn off Enketo’s swipe page option.

1 Like
12

Thanks for this. I’ll leave this topic open/unsolved just because this is an interim workaround (with some drawbacks…) till a proper fix is found, namely fix the underlying issue in Enketo’s swipe handling.

2 Likes