Very Minor Issue: Newline Button Shows Instead of Enter Button

[ghost]

Software and hardware versions

Collect v1.14.2, Android v7.0, Samsung Galaxy Note 5

Problem description

On many forms, you cannot press any button to confirm a string in a TextEntry field. Tapping outside the field doesn't finalize that text entry either. You have to tap the next box.

Steps to reproduce the problem

From Home Screen tap on Fill Blank Form, then tap on Biggest N of Set. A popup will give you two options 1) 'DO NOT ADD' and 2) 'ADD GROUP'. Tap 'ADD GROUP'. Tap on any TextEntry field, enter some text, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Expected behavior

There needs to be some sort of way to advance to the next text field without tapping that next text field. The button in the red circle should be able to be used to finalize single text entry fields. Essentially anything to finalize a string entry, including being able to tap outside the box.

Other information

Things you tried, stack traces, related issues, suggestions on how to fix it...

[grzesiek2010]

@opendatakit-bot label "needs discussion"

[lognaturel]

Hi @RyanProffitt and thanks for reporting this!

I agree it's not ideal but the enter button is there because newlines are supported in text boxes and can be useful for longer answers.

Some options I see:

• Use the suggestion bar to include next / prev buttons
• Introduce an appearance to disallow newlines in text inputs
• Always disallow newlines in text inputs in field-lists (this is risky because users may be relying on newlines)

None seems perfect to me. Any thoughts or alternative suggestions?

[grzesiek2010]

@lognaturel I think a good solution would be to use singleLine (and then Done button is visible by default) when an appearance rows="1" is added. What do you think?

Currently using rows="1" doesn't change anything since we have one row by default and even if you specify row number you are allowed to add more it's just an initial value not a max value.

[grzesiek2010]

Generally, I think that appearance is a little bit misleading because it indicates that exactly x rows should be used but it's a minimal value and we allow adding new rows (making EditText bigger).

I think we should add more appearances:
minRows - behavior like the current one
maxRows - only one row is displayed by default and we allow adding x new rows.
rows - minRows and maxRows at the same time (exactly x rows used)

of course, a user is able to add longer text for example 10 rows even if maxRows is 4 but then they have to scroll to review added answer.

[lognaturel]

I'm not sure whether this issue is the best way to track this but we do generally have challenges around what the keyboard "enter" should mean and navigation between fields. See forum threads:

• https://forum.getodk.org/t/remove-next-and-back-button-while-filling-text-field-in-odk-collect/33105
• https://forum.getodk.org/t/tab-move-between-form-fields-on-one-page/5620
• https://forum.getodk.org/t/prevent-multiline-text-in-a-single-text-field/33072